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THE SHADOW 
ON THE GLASS 


BY 

CHARLES J. DUTTON '' 

Author of “The Underwood Mystery,” “Out of the 

Darkness.” 


“Tho it abide a year, or two or three 
Murder will out—this is my conclusion.* 

Chauceb 


NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1923 




'I 


Copyright, 1923, 

By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



PRINTED IN U. S. A. 



J&N !6 1323 ^ 

©ciAeo20ie 



**We wonder who reads the mystery stories,'^ 
so say the critics. Here are so7ne that do: 

Frank K. Dutton, M.D., my brother 
Hermann Lemp, Inventor, electrical expert 
John Guthrie Fairfield, Professor of Mechanical Engineering 
Miles W. Sterrett, steel salesman, sales agent 
Leo M. Doody, Commissioner of Charities, Albany, N. Y, 
Henry M. Taylor of the Penn. R. R. 




These are representative enoughj and all friends 
qf miney so I dedicate this hook to them. 



CONTENTS 


OHAPTXB PAGE 

I OvEE THE Telephone.1 

II The Butler’s Story.10 

III The Missing Box of Gold .... 24 

IV A Message from the Beach ... 46 

V A Motive Appears.57 

VI The Mystery Deepens.73 

VII Conflicting Theories.87 

VIII Bartley Talks.100 

IX I Hear More about Maxson . . . 113 

X A Gold Piece is Found.128 

XI A Confession of Murder .... 145 
XII A Flash in the Dark.159 

XIII Gold and Ashes.173 

XIV We Meet with Several Surprises . 188 
XV An Unexpected Visitor .... 199 

XVI One Chance in a Million .... 213 
XVII The Shadow on the Glass .... 228 
XVIII Murder Will Out.240 










THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 



THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

CHAPTER ONE 

OVER THE TELEPHONE 

I T must have been after nine when I entered 
the great dining room of the Ocean House. 
As a rule it was always filled but the hour 
was rather late for breakfast and the half a 
dozen people that were in the room seemed lost, 
among the several hundred tables. The head 
waiter greeted me with a smile, steering me over 
to a small table by the large bay windows. The 
order was taken at once, and after a glance 
around the room, I turned and gazed out of the 
window. 

Below me was the sea, with the long stretch 
of beach, a beach that ended at Point Judith, 
many miles away. Though it was July, the 
sand looked cold under the hazy sky. As a rule, 
on a clear day one could see Block Island, with 
its white sand cliffs standing high above the 
water twenty miles away. But this morning it 
was hidden by a fog, a fog that stood only a few 

miles out at sea. The water was beginning to 

1 


2 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


roughen under the rising wind, and the fog 
promised to envelop the land in a little while. 
Not only was the sky hazy, but it promised rain. 
Already a few fishing boats were running to 
cover before the coming storm, the sound of the 
exhaust of their engines coming faintly to my 
,ears through the closed windows. It did not 
promise to be the finest kind of a day for the 
wedding, which had brought Bartley and me 
down from the city the night before. 

Weddings were, as a rule, more or less out of 
our line. But the daughter of an old friend of 
Bartley’s was to be married, and he had insisted 
on his being present. Still I have the idea, that 
that invitation of Frank Rice’s was not the only 
thing which had brought Bartley to Watch Hill. 
Not only would his coming please his friend, 
but it would give Bartley a few days by the sea 
and an opportunity to play some golf on the 
fine course at the Hill. 

Though Frank Rice was much older than 
Bartley, yet the two men were warm friends. 
Perhaps it was their mutual love for books that 
drew them together. Not that Rice loved books 
for themselves, as Bartley did. Books to Bart¬ 
ley were something to make part of your life, 
something that opened up all of the past life of 
man. Rice, on the other hand, spent part of his 
great wealth in gathering together one of the 


OVER THE TELEPHONE 


3 


finest libraries in the country. A library filled 
with rare editions and manuscripts, and which 
he enjoyed only because'he liked to have it said, 
it was one of the three best libraries in the land. 
As to the contents of his library, I am afraid he 
knew little about them, himself. 

But Rice was one of the most lovable men 
I have ever met. Wealthy, yet his wealth had 
not been made by grinding down the poor. 
His shipping line went back to the War of 1812, 
and was known the world over. So far as I 
know, he was the first shipowner, and about the 
only one that instituted profit sharing among 
his seamen. Sailors considered it an honor to 
work for him, and he knew the names of almost 
all the men on his ships. In all, a kindly old 
man, who loved children, dogs and horses, in the 
order named. His wife had been dead for some 
years, and a daughter and a nephew were all 
the family that he had. And it was the 
daughter’s wedding we were to attend at noon. 

The waiter at length returned with my order, 
and I turned from gazing out of the window, to 
my breakfast. Even in the short time I had 
been at the table the fog had crept in, a heavy, 
damp fog that clung close to the ground and 
blotted the sea from sight. When I rose to go 
to my room, the first drops of rain were dashing 
against the windows. 


4 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


When I reached the second floor of the hotel, 
and opened the door of our rooms, I found that 
not only was Bartley seated in a chair, with the 
usual book in his hand, but he was already 
dressed for the wedding. Though it was not 
yet ten, he was wearing his black cutaway and 
a dark tie. He smiled as I closed the door, 
joked a little about the early hour that I took 
my breakfast, then went back to his book. I 
read through the morning paper, then leaned 
back in the chair for the first smoke of the day, 
glancing at Bartley as I lighted my pipe. His 
book no doubt was one of the many items he 
collected, dealing with the unknown life and 
manners of the past. Once or twice, as his long 
nervous fingers turned the pages, a smile came 
over his face. Once he threw back his head 
several moments in deep thought. It was at this 
point that I smiled a little to myself, at the 
thought that came to me. Perhaps Bartley 
would have been considered the best-known 
criminal investigator in the country. Yet it 
was a hard thing to believe, unless you knew him 
well. His fine head, the hair touched with 
gray; the expressive eyes, the long nervous 
fingers, all told of the many hundred years of 
breeding that was in his family line. In a 
crowd he might have been taken for a profes¬ 
sional man of the highest type, but never for 


OVER THE TELEPHONE 


5 


what he was. One glance would have told the 
student, the cultured man of books. But a 
glance would have told also, that he loved the 
open air and did not neglect the outdoor life 
for his books. 

All at once, with a little laugh, he dropped his 
book on the arm of the chair. There was a quiz¬ 
zical smile on his face, as he turned to me. 

^^Do you think. Pelt, a man could walk up the 
stairs of his house into an attic, which was the 
only room he could have entered—an attic with¬ 
out a single window or any means of exit excei)t 
by walking down the stairs again into the room 
filled with people—do you think he could go up 
to this room and vanish forever, no trace of him 
ever being found?’’ 

Not knowing just what he meant, I ventured, 
^Tt looks fishy.” My answer made him laugh 
and he replied:— 

‘^Yes it does. Yet here is a little book I got 
from France the other day. It’s an account of 
what happened to Jean Richer in 1786, or rather 
an attempt to discover what happened. He did 
the very thing I spoke about. He invited fifteen 
of his friends to his little house one night and 
went up in his attic to get something he wished to 
show them. The attic was the only room above 
the main fioor, with one stairway to it, and no 
windows. When at the end of fifteen minutes 



6 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


he did not return, the people went up to see what 
happened. They never found out. He was gone, 
vanished from the earth, so to speak. The only 
way he could have returned was by the stairs, and 
they led into the room where the people were. 
But they all testified that he never returned. 
They say they heard his footsteps above their 
heads for a while, then they ceased, and they 
went to look for him. They never found him. 
He had vanished.” 

It seemed about as crazy a yarn as I had ever 
heard, and I said as much, expressing wonder as 
to what happened to the man. 

Bartley gave a little laugh at my tone, and 
shook his head. “No one knows what happened. 
The legal authorities of that day looked into it, 
thinking some one of the fifteen had murdered 
him. But every one swore that no one left the 
room, while the man was up in the attic. Fif¬ 
teen people told the same story, that he went up¬ 
stairs, and never returned, and there was no 
window that he could have gotten out of. Then 
the church got busy, I think in the end they de¬ 
cided that the Devil had carried him off. As no 
one could dispute them on that point, it seemed 
to get accepted. But I think—” 

Whatever he would have said, I never knew. 
Suddenly at this point, breaking in on him, the 
telephone began to ring. He rose in rather a 


OVER THE TELEPHONE 


7 


bored manner and went over to the desk and 
picked up the receiver. I reached for the book 
he had been reading, and started to open it. All 
at once, the strange tone in his voice caused me 
to turn and look at him. 

He was sitting on the chair, his head half 
turned toward me. Upon his face there was a 
very startled expression, as if he could not be¬ 
lieve what the person at the other end of the wire 
was saying. In his voice was a doubting tone, 
that seemed to have a shade of horror in it. 

‘^Yes,’^ he drawled at first, the voice suddenly 
becoming crisp, ‘^Yes, this is John Bartley; John 
Bartley, yes, I have that.’’ Then came a long 
pause, in which I saw the red fade out of his 
face, and then fiush back again. A pause that 
was broken by his saying suddenly ^^My God— 
Yes, I’ll come away.” , 

He placed the receiver back on the hook, and 
rose slowly to his feet, standing motionless a mo^ 
ment, without saying a word. I saw his fingers 
slowly open and close, and there was a queer look 
on his face; a look not only of surprise, but of 
horror. He turned to me, and for a second I 
thought he was going to speak, but he did not. 
Instead he reached for the telephone once more, 
standing several minutes with his hand on the 
receiver, silent, motionless. Then with a sudden 
gesture, he swept the receiver from the hook, and 


8 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


called the hotel office. He got his connection at 
once and I heard him say:— 

^This is John Bartley, Room 212. I want my 
car up from the garage in five minutes. No— 
not an hour, in five minutes, and I won^t accept 
any delay. Have it in front of the hotel. 

Again he placed the receiver back on the hook, 
and still silent, sank back in the nearest chair. 
I watched him in dazed wonder. Something had 
happened, but what I could not telL As a rule, 
no matter what came, nothing ever startled him, 
he never lost his poise. But now he was shaken, 
I could see his lips close in a tense line, and his 
hands were trembling. He turned to me, and his 
voice was weary, though back of it was a stern 
edge, as he spoke. 

‘‘Pelt,’^ he said, ^^That call came from Frank 
Rice^s butler. He said they just found Rice dead 
in his library—murdered.” 

I gasped. Rice murdered, and his daughter's 
wedding was to be held at noon. I started to 
speak, but the look on Bartley’s face stopped me. 
His voice was cold and crisp, as he continued, 

‘‘Yes—murdered. They want us right over.” 
He paused, and all at once his voice suddenly 
broke. “That fine old man,—and his poor daugh¬ 
ter.” 

In a second he got control of himself, and I 
saw his fingers close, as he brought his clenched 


OVER THE TELEPHONE 


9 


fist down on the edge of the desk, so hard that 
the fiesh whitened. 

^^God help the man that killed him,’’ he said 
slowly, like one taking an oath. And knowing 
Bartley—seeing the emotion that had overcome 
him at the death of his friend—I knew that who¬ 
ever had committed the crime, would need the 
help that he had spoken of. 


CHAPTER TWO 


THE BUTLER^S STORY 

T en minutes later, we went out to the car, 
which was standing before the hotel. It 
had turned into a beastly day, damp and 
cold, with a fog now so dense that everything was 
blotted from sight. We could barely see the 
front of the car, and the cottages across the street 
had simply vanished. It was a damp cold fog, 
clinging like a great wet blanket close to the 
ground, that penetrated our clothes as if they 
were so much tissue paper. When we climbed 
into the car, it seemed as if we were alone in the 
world, and only a curtain of gray mist could be 
seen. It was silent, only the sound of the surf, 
starting to pound on the shore, and the incessant 
shrieking of the fog horn at the light house could 
be heard. Feeling absolutely depressed, I sank 
down into the seat beside Bartley. 

As we started, I wondered how he would be 
able to find his way. The road could not be seen 
ahead of us, and seemed to have become a lost 
thing. But we drove at an astonishing speed, 
when one considered that he could not see where 

he was going. Down past the hotel we fiew, 

10 


THE BUTLER’S STORY 


11 


round a corner, then down a hill, crossing the 
electric car tracks. Then I knew we were on the 
street that led to the section of the Hill where 
Rice had his summer home. Bartley said noth¬ 
ing and I huddled down in the seat trying to fig¬ 
ure out what we would find at the house when 
we got there. 

Bartley had been to Rice’s summer place 
several times. The house itself was on a point 
of land that jutted down into the still waters of 
the bay. A point of land having the bay on one 
side, and a little river on the other. There one 
found the summer homes of those who had been 
coming to the Hill for many years. Unlike most 
of the people that owned summer homes. Rice 
had for several years kept his place open the 
year round, spending his time between the Hill 
and New York. Why he had done this I do not 
know, and the strangest thing to me was the 
fact that a part of his wonderful library was 
housed at the Hill. 

How Bartley was able to stop his car in front 
of the right house I do not know, for the fog 
seemed thicker than when we started. It was 
raining quite hard now, a fact that xDleased 
me, for I knew it would cause the fog to break. 
We stopped at last, before the dim shape of a 
stone house, and a second later we were up the 
steps. 


12 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


We rang the bell, and waited impatiently for 
some one to come. It seemed as if the door 
would never open. There was no response, in 
fact we rang several times before we heard some 
one fumbling with the knob. Then the door 
was flung open. For a second, the light in the 
great hall blinded me. Then I picked out an 
old man, who with tear-stained face looked 
searchingly at us. I could tell, of course, it was 
the butler, and it needed only a glance to see 
that the old man had gone to pieces. He gave 
one searching look at Bartley, then with a half 
cry said:— 

^^Oh, Mr. Bartley, some one,—some one has 
killed the master, killed him. What shall we 
do? What shall we do?” 

His voice broke. He leaned against the wall 
for support. He was an old man, with a kindly 
face, crowned with snowy hair. For many years 
he had been Mr. Rice’s butler, and the relations 
between them were something more than that of 
master and servant. Tears were streaming 
down his face, and his hands were trembling, as 
he looked appealingly at Bartley. 

Bartley did not speak for a moment. I saw 
his face soften, then he placed his arm around 
the shoulder of the butler, holding it there for a 
moment without speaking. 

^^Richards,” he said, ‘Ht’s very sad. Suppose 


THE BUTLER’S STORY 


13 


you take us into tlie little smoking room, and 
tell us what happened. Have the police ar¬ 
rived yet?” 

The butler, remembering his position, started 
to lead ns down the wide hall. He walked 
slowly and feebly. By the open door of the lit¬ 
tle room he paused and then led us in. It was 
a small room, off the great living room. Then, 
as if remembering the question he had been 
asked, he turned to us:— 

telephoned the police a while ago. They 
said they would run right down.” 

He hesitated, as if not knowing what to say 
or do. Bartley placed a chair by his side and 
motioned for him to take it. I could see that he 
would have to be questioned, if we were to dis¬ 
cover what had occurred. He was in no condi¬ 
tion to give any information himself; sitting on 
the edge of the chair like a man stunned. So 
Bartley told him to tell us all that had taken 
place—where they had found Rice and when. 

Even then, the butler was unable for some 
moments to speak, and it was only after Bart¬ 
ley had repeated his request several times that 
he seemed to understand what was wanted. 
Then in a low voice, stopping at every word, 
hesitating and repeating, he began, 

^Why it was, sir, this morning, at maybe half 
past eight. Miss Faith asked me to tell her 


14 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


father she was waiting for him to have break¬ 
fast with her. Mr. Kice, as a rule, ate alone 
at seven-thirty, but last night he and Miss Faith 
agreed to eat together this morning at eight- 
thirty. 

He paused, his voice breaking at the thought, 
then added, ^^The poor—poor girl. It was to be 
her last breakfast with her father before she 
was married.” We waited for him to recover, 
and he went on:— 

^^Mr. Rice, as you know, Mr. Bartley, has his 
library on the top floor. It takes in almost 
all the floor, except for a little office. His 
sleeping rooms, as you know, are on the third 
floor. I went to his suite and knocked. He 
did not open the door or say a word. So I 
knocked again, then opened the door, and looked 
in. He was not there.” 

^‘The bed had not been slept in?” asked Bart¬ 
ley. 

‘‘No sir, not touched at all. I wondered 
where he had been, so went to the top floor, 
thinking he might be there. But the library 
door was locked, and I could not find him 
around the house. The detectives said they 
had seen him in the room last night, but did 
not see him leave.” 

“The detectives,” broke in Bartley in an as- 


THE BUTLER’S STORY 15 

tonished voice, “What under Heavens do you 
mean ?” 

“Why, sir, we had two detectives guarding 
the presents. The wedding presents are very 
valuable, and were all displayed in the library 
at the top of the house. Mr. Rice had two 
detectives here, they came last night.” 

There was a curious look on Bartley’s face. 
“Do you mean those men spent the night in 
the room with the wedding gifts?” 

“Oh, no, sir. Mr. Rice said that was foolish. 
The presents were on the fourth floor, and the 
only way to get to that floor is by the elevator. 
One of them stayed on this floor, and the other 
spent most of his time between the second and 
third floors, watching the elevator.” 

“The elevator?” I asked. 

Bartley turned to me. “Yes, Pelt. Not only 
are there the stairs leading to the various floors, 
but also an elevator. The stairs do not go to 
the fourth floor, where Mr. Rice keeps his man¬ 
uscripts. The only way to reach that floor is by 
the elevator.” 

He turned to the butler. “You say the door of 
the library was locked?” 

“Yes, sir, it was barred or locked all night.” 

Bartley gave a low whistle. I could see that 
he was upset over something. He turned to 


16 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


me. he said, ^^Here is a queer thing. 

Mr. Rice seems to have been murdered with two 
detectives in his house.’’ 

I had no time to answer, for the butler was 
speaking again. 

^^When I got to the library, I found the door 
locked, no one answered. When I could not 
find Mr. Rice, I thought it was queer and went 
and told Miss Faith. For some reason she 
was afraid, and said we must try to get into 
the library. She talked to the detectives, and 
one of them said that the last time he saw Mr. 
Rice, he was in the library. We all went to 
the top floor and knocked again. No answer. 
We had no ladders long enough to reach from 
the ground to the windows—it’s a matter of 
fifty feet—so we decided to chop a hole in 
the door.” 

^‘Who suggested that?” asked Bartley. 

He shook his head. ‘H don’t know, sir, maybe 
Miss Faith,—no—I guess one of those detectives. 
Anyway I got an ax, and he chopped a little hole 
and reached in, and finding the key was inside, 
he unlocked the door.” 

^^The kev was inside?” 

‘Wes, sir; it was. He unlocked the door, and 
we went in. The wedding presents were all 
on the long tables, untouched. But when we 
went in that little den, then—” He hesitated. 


THE BUTLER'S STORY 17 

overcome by the memory of what he had seen, 
and the tears again gathered in his eyes. 

^^Yes," said Bartley softly. 

^We—we found him on the floor, dead. 
There must have been an awful fight, for 
things were scattered around and the draperies 
had been pulled down. He was dead, his head 
all smashed in. An awful sight, sir." 

Silence fell again, and in it, I could picture 
the scene and the horror of it. Then came 
Bartley's voice:— 

“Windows of the room locked?" 

“All closed but two, sir, but it's fifty feet or 
more to the ground, and I don't think that any 
one could get out of the room by either window." 

“Was there anything missing?—though 1 
don't suppose you had time to look." 

“So far as I could tell, sir, there was nothing 
missing. Miss Faith did not bother to look, 
asked me to call you and get the police." 

Bartley rose from his chair and walked' down 
the little room, then back again, pausing at my 
chair. Suddenly the door bell rang, and with 
a startled air, the butler rose slowly and went 
out in the hall. After he had gone, Bartley 
said:— 

“Pelt, this may be a simple crime, but I have 
an idea we will find a very mysterious thing. 
Rice did not have an enemy in the world; the 



18 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


butler says that nothing is missing. If he is 
right about that door being locked then we 
will have all we can do to fathom how the 
murderer got out of the room.’’ 

He said no more, for there was the sound of 
voices out in the hall, and the next moment 
three men came in, followed by the butler. 
One I could tell was the chief of police, by the 
shining badge on his chest. He was the 
largest policeman that I have ever seen, well 
over six feet tall and must have weighed 
about two hundred and fifty pounds. His face 
was red and fat, flushed as if he had been 
hurrying. He was the first one to enter the 
room, the other two men following him. 

One of these I judged was a policeman of 
some kind. He had the shifty look of a man 
who lived by his wits, and also a rather over¬ 
emphasized idea of his own importance, a thing 
I have often noticed in small office holders. 
He looked around the room with an important 
air, and his glance was suspicious as it rested 
upon us. If he had only worn a cleaner collar, 
and if the baggy black suit that hung over his 
thin frame had been pressed, I might have liked 
him better. / 

The third man evidently was connected with 
the police force, for after a glance at us he 
whispered something in the ear of the chief. 


THE BUTLER’S STORY 


19 


He was one of those unattractive men that you 
never notice, with a heavy figure, and yet with 
a keen face. I saw the chief nod, then he 
turned to the butler:— 

^^Who are those men?” he growled, with a 
gesture at us. 

^Why,” answered the butler, rather aston¬ 
ished, ^^They are friends of Mr. Rice,—one of 
them is Mr. Bartley, the detective.” 

Bartley’s name evidently was unknown to 
the chief, for he half sneered:— detective, 

where from? This is a job for the police not a 
detective agency.” 

Bartley turned to him, but before he could 
speak the other police officer stepped over to 
the chief and whispered something in his ear. 
What it was I could only guess, but the look 
on the chief’s face turned to one of interest. 
He turned, and half apologizing, said:— 

^^Mr. Bartley, Dunn says that you are a very 
well-known New York detective. Excuse that 
crack I got off about a detective agency. Are 
you in on this case?” 

Bartley smiled, and told him how we had 
been called in. Then in a few words he in¬ 
formed him of what the butler had told us. 
The eyes of the chief grew larger and larger 
as the tale went on. When Bartley finished 
the chief introduced us to the other two men. 


20 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


The one was the coroner, whom I found out later 
was a broken-down lawyer, with little prac¬ 
tice. The other was the only detective they had 
on the force of the town, and his name was 
Dunn. 

After the introductions, the chief asked Bart¬ 
ley if we had seen the dead man and the room 
in which the crime had been committed. He 
shook his head, saying we had just arrived at 
the house and that first we wished to hear 
from the butler what had taken place. The 
chief seemed a little ill at ease. It may have been 
the fact that he was in the home of one of the rich¬ 
est men of the Hill, or it may have been that 
he was not accustomed to dealing with serious 
crimes. Be that as it may, he stood silent for 
a moment, his eyes wandering round the room. 
It was Bartley’s rule to allow the local police 
to take the first steps, they after all having an 
official standing which he did not have. But 
seeing that the chief did not seem to know 
what to do, he suggested that we go to the 
scene of the crime 

This was agreed to, and we all followed the 
butler out into the great living room. It was 
a room that stretched almost across the house, 
with two great fireplaces that were on oppo¬ 
site sides of the room. Upon the walls hung 
many paintings, mostly pictures of the sea, and 


21 


THE BUTLER^S STORY 

it needed only a glance to see that they were 
valuable. But we did not pause to look at the 
room, but followed the butler to one end of it. 
Here we stopped, while the butler pushed a but¬ 
ton that was before him. 

At first glance one would not have said that 
there was a door before us, as the mahogony 
wall seemed to have no break in it. Still there 
was a little silver handle on’ the woodwork, 
which the butler grasped as he pushed back a 
sliding door. Then I saw the iron grillwork of 
the elevator, which was standing ready for us 
to enter. It was one of those self-operating 
elevators. First, you pushed the button and 
when the elevator came down to your floor, then 
you were able to open the door and enter. The 
inner door of the elevator itself you had to close, 
or else the machine would not start. We all 
entered, there being room for five. The butler 
closed the wooden door, and pushing the button 
that was marked —4—, the elevator began to 
rise. 

It only seemed a second before it came to a 
stop, and the doors were thrown open, and we 
came out into a little hall, just a few feet wide, 
evidently a place from which to enter the large 
room. Before us was a half-open door, the 
panels of which were broken through a little 
above the lock. Silently, thinking of what we 



22 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


might find within, we entered, Bartley taking 
the lead. 

The room was a mammoth one, covering al¬ 
most all of the top floor of the house. Book¬ 
cases filled almost every part of the walls, ex¬ 
cept at the large windows. Running the length 
of the room were many glass-covered cases, four 
feet high, through which I could see the collec¬ 
tion of old manuscripts, and the fourteenth and 
fifteenth century first editions. This was the 
room in which Rice housed his library. The 
bookcases, and the glass-covered cases contain¬ 
ing that wonderful collection of first editions 
which he owned. Along the side of the walls 
however, were three long tables, many feet in 
length, glittering with cut glass, silver, boxes 
and linen. These evidently were the wedding 
presents, which must have been very valuable. 

I think I had been a little afraid that we 
might come upon the dead man. But there was 
nothing in this room to show that anything 
was out of the way. Only the long line of books, 
the cases through which one got a glimpse of the 
parchments, and the long tables filled with gifts, 
could be seen. All this I took in at a glance, 
but Bartley simply swept the room with his eyes 
and passed on to an open door. 

The room, as I said, almost covered the entire 
top of the house. On three sides were great 


THE BUTLER’S STORY 


23 


windows with bookcases between them, but a 
few feet from where we had entered was a wall, 
and in it an opened space. It was to this space 
Bartley went. I saw him reach it, start to step 
into the next room, then give a sudden recoil. 
I saw his face whiten, and his eyes grow smaller, 
as he stood looking silently into the room while 
the rest of us watched him. I think we all knew 
what he was looking at, and I knew that back of 
his stern face, was grief. 

In a second we reached his side, and stood 
looking into the room. It was not large, maybe 
twenty feet long and the same width. Directly 
across from me were two windows, one of which 
was open, but there were no curtains. They 
were laying in a tangled mass on the floor. A 
safe stood in one corner, its doors half open, and 
near it a tall bookcase. But these were not the 
things we were looking at, it was something 
else, something at which all eyes were turned. 

There on the floor, nearer the window than 
the door, lay a still figure, that looked as if it 
had suddenly fallen in a heap. A figure with 
its head turned on one side in a queer position 
—with one arm outstretched and the other with 
clenched fist resting on the chest. A figure 
with white hair, still, silent, that did not move 
I—that would never move. The master of the 
house, dead in the midst of his books. 


CHAPTER THREE 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 

I T was only for a moment we stood there. We 
were in a sense hardened to death, yet I 
heard a sudden ^^Ah^’ escape from the lips 
of the chief. It must have been trying for Bart¬ 
ley, as the dead man was his friend, and they 
had spent many hours in that room. But it 
was only for a moment that he stood silent, his 
face white, and his eyes sad. Then with a start, 
as if awakening from a dream, he went over to 
the body and knelt beside it. 

The room plainly told that a struggle had 
taken place. The curtains had been torn from 
the windows, and were lying a tangled mass 
upon the floor. Over near the door, upon a 
tripod, was a great camera. The drapery that 
had hung over the door had been pulled down 
over the instrument. Two chairs were lying on 
their sides, while the floor was covered with 
papers and pencils, which had been swept from 
the surface of the desk. Evidently there had 
been a struggle, one that must have been ter¬ 
rific while it lasted. The door of the safe was 

24 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 25 

half open, but nothing seemed to be disturbed 
there. 

For a second I had taken in the room, then 
turned to look at the figure upon the floor. It 
needed only a glance to see that the murder had 
been one of unusual brutality. The snowy 
white hair was stained with blood, and the skull 
was crushed in. It was not a pleasant sight 
to look at. Still there was work to do, and 
Bartley made a hasty examination, the chief 
kneeling beside him. At last they rose to their 
feet and Bartley^s eyes went slowly around the 
room. 

^Well?’^ asked the chief. 

Bartley’s eyes went down to the figure on the 
floor, then again around the room. With a 
little exclamation, he went over to the curtains 
which were lying on the floor by the windows. 
Stooping he reached for something on the floor, 
and when he straightened up there was a cane 
in his hand. He looked at it carefully, balanc¬ 
ing it in his hand. Then he came back to our 
side. 

judge there is no doubt how Bice met his 
death,” he said. ^^One look at this room tells 
that there was a struggle, a desperate one. 
Those curtains were pulled down as the men 
fought back and forth. That struggle swept all 
over this room. You see the draperies at the 


26 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


door were pulled down, the curtains at the 
windows also. The surface of the desk was 
swept clean. It was a desperate struggle, that 
lasted till the murderer reached for his weapon 
and in a rage pounded the life from his victim.’^ 

^^The weapon?^’ asked both the chief and his 
detective. 

^^This cane,’^ was the reply, extending it for 
us to see. In silence we stood glancing at the 
cane he held in his hand. It was a rather 
heavy thing, heavier than'most men carry. In 
looks it was not unlike most canes that one 
sees. There was a great bulging knob and here 
was the only difference, for the head of the cane 
was stained with blood. There was no doubt 
this was the weapon with which the crime had 
been committed. 

^^But,” asked the chief, his big eyes looking 
wonderingly around the room, ^^how do you 
think it happened?’^ 

The detective Dunn, who up to this time had 
been silent, suddenly spoke in a little squeaky 
voice:— 

^^Suppose there was a man, waiting for him 
to come in; say, hidden behind those curtains. 
When Kice enters, he jumps out at him from be¬ 
hind the curtains, pulling them down.^’ He 
looked at Bartley who half nodded. ^^That 
might be so, yet let^s take it another way. I 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 27 

think, Dunn, maybe you are right in thinking 
that the person who killed Kice was in the room, 
and was surprised by him. He might have been 
back of the curtains, he might have been kneel¬ 
ing at the safe. To me that open safe proves 
that Kice was not ready for bed. See, iFs left 
just as we would leave a safe open. The mur¬ 
derer did not open it—far from it, it was open. 
Rice came in from the other room, say, saw the 
person in here and the struggle started. It 
must have been a desperate one. They strug¬ 
gled back and forth, from one end of the room 
to the other. This cane must have been stand¬ 
ing near by and the murderer, finding himself 
hard pressed, seized it, and struck Rice. Then 
to make sure he was dead he hit him again and 
again in his rage. 

^^But how did he get out?” asked the chief. 

Bartley turned to the butler, who was stand¬ 
ing silent by the door. I had noticed that the 
old servant, after one quick glance at the mur¬ 
dered man, had never looked again. His face 
was not only white, but he looked sick. 

^‘Did you ever see this cane?” he was asked. 

Half shuddering, he glanced at it, even touch¬ 
ing it, with trembling hands. He looked at it 
carefully, finally taking it and turning it over 
and over. 

“No, Mr. Bartley, I did not,” came the an- 


28 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


swer. am sure it never belonged to the mas¬ 
ter. He had a few canes but never used them. 
But I am sure that this did not belong to him.” 

‘^Did you ever see the cane before?” 

He was silent a second, as if trying to think, 
then shook his head. 

^^Mr. Bartley,” asked Dunn, in that squeaky 
voice, ‘Vhat do you think was the motive of 
the murder?” 

Bartley did not answer him at first, going 
over to the safe and peering in the open door. 
Crowding near him, we saw that the inner door 
of the safe was locked, the thin sheet of steel 
resisting our efforts to open it. Bartley stood 
looking silently at it a moment, saying nothing. 
Then he went out into the library. Upon the 
long tables were the wedding gifts, the usual 
kind. Great stacks of snowy linen, rows of 
glittering cut glass, silver without number it 
seemed. Down the three long tables he passed, 
pausing only once. Then it was to look at a 
little mahogany box that stood in the midst of a 
mass of silver. He reached over and lifted it, 
then put it back. But apparently he found 
nothing to interest him, for the wedding gifts 
seemed untouched. Then when he came back to 
the door of the smaller room, he answered the 
question the detective had asked. 

“I can^t tell what the motive for the murder 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 29 


was, Dunn. The safe was not touched. So 
far as I can see the wedding gifts are all right. 
If it was robbery there are a good many thou¬ 
sand dollars worth of things on those tables. I 
don’t see any motive yet.” 

He paused, turning to the butler, who fol¬ 
lowed behind us, silent like a gray ghost. 

‘^Richards, Mr. Rice has a secretary. Where 
is she?” 

^Wqu mean Miss Long. She does not stay 
in the house, sir. Mr. Rice told her she might 
like to have her mother with her this summer, 
and they stay at the Rhode Island, that little 
hotel on the bank of the river. She comes in 
about ten o^clock every day. I telephoned to 
her, after I called you, and she should be here 
very soon.” 

‘^She would have a list of those wedding gifts, 
and would know if anything had been taken,” 
Bartley said, turning to the chief. 

The chief was apparently out of his depth. 
He was the typical small town chief of police, 
whose work dealt with petty crimes. Confronted 
with a murder, he was all at sea. All he could 
do was to stand by and watch Bartley with in¬ 
terested eyes, as he went about his work. Still, 
there was one thing in his favor. He realized 
the crime was beyond him, and was willing to 
allow the other man to go ahead. We had in 


30 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


the past dealt with police chiefs who would not 
do this. But this one seemed glad that some 
one of experience was to work with him. 

His detective had the keener mind of the two, 
despite the fact that he was a rather queer look¬ 
ing chap and had that funny, squeaky voice. His 
eyes were keen, and they wandered again and 
again around the room. It was he that said:— 

^^Mr. Bartley, those detectives said the door 
leading from the hall into the library was locked, 
with the key on the inside. If so, the murderer - 
could not have locked that door from within 
and got out, unless he got out of that open win¬ 
dow.’^ He pointed to the library window which 
stood half open. 

Bartley nodded. We went over to the window 
and looked out. It was still very foggy, the 
fog clinging to the ground, hiding everything 
from sight. But I got the idea that it was 
going to lift in a little while, for it was raining 
steadily. 

The window must have been at least fifty feet 
from the ground, which we could not see. It 
seemed impossible for any one to escape from 
that window, save for one thifig. That was, 
about three feet under the window there ran a 
ledge, maybe two feet wide, that evidently ran 
around the house. But even then, the idea of 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 31 


any one walking on that ledge seemed out of the 
question. There was no doubt, of course, that 
a clear-headed person might have done it. But 
I remembered the terrific thunder storm we had 
the night before, around twelve o’clock. The 
thought of any one walking on the ledge in the 
dark, seemed almost incredible. Still with the 
door locked, the key inside, the murderer had to 
get out of the room and the open window gave 
the only solution of his escape. But another 
thought struck me. If he did walk around that 
ledge what would he gain? He would still be 
on the same floor. The room we were in and the 
smaller one where the dead man lay, took in the 
whole top floor. I could not see what it could 
profit one to try to escape by walking around 
that narrow ledge. 

I said that to Bartley. For some reason he 
seemed a little amused as he answered:— 

‘Well, Pelt, at the corner of the house, there 
is a heavy copper rain pipe, which I judge would 
support the weight of a man. If one reached it, 
it is within the bound of possibility that he 
could slide down it and reach the ground.” 

“Hell,” said‘the chief in an amazed air. “It 
would take all kinds of nerve to walk that ledge 
in that storm last night. It rained for two 
hours, you know, around midnight. Think of 


32 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


it, walking that two-foot ledge in the storm and 
dark, and then sliding down the rain pipe. Why 
one step meant death.” 

Dunn broke in on him:— 

^^But chief, that^s the only way they could 
have got out. If that door was locked on the 
inside, there was no other way out. They could 
not lock the door and leave the key inside. They 
had to get out. That was the only way, and 
that^s the way they did.” He paused, and 
leaned out of the window to look at the 
ledge. 

I saw a curious look on Bartley’s face as he 
replied:— 

^‘There is no use looking for any trace of a 
footprint on that ledge. The rain would wash 
that off. Let’s look at the door.” 

The door had been broken through, just 
above the lock. It was a heavy door, and it 
must have taken some moments to cut through 
it. The key was on the inside. It struck me it 
was strange that it should have been necessary 
to lock the door, for there was a spring lock. 
When the door was closed, it would have been 
locked anyway, there was no necessity to have 
turned the key. I voiced this, and Bartley gave 
me a sudden glance and bent down to look at the 
lock. When he straightened up, I noticed that 
a keen look was in his eyes; he had evidently 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 33 


struck something, though what it was I could 
not tell. But the very tenseness in his voice 
when he spoke, told that he was throwing off the 
shock caused by his friend's death. Again he 
was the keen-witted Bartley, intent upon his 
case. 

^'Richards," he said, ^Vhere are those two 
detectives?" 

^^Why, sir, they were down getting their break¬ 
fast. I thought that you would like to see them, 
so told them to have breakfast down in the ser- 
ants' dining room." 

^^Get them up here at once," was the command. 

The butler left the room for the elevator, and 
we all stood rather foolishly wondering what 
would happen next. I could see that the solv¬ 
ing of the affair would rest with Bartley, for 
the chief was too perplexed to be of much aid. 
Suddenly he heaved a sigh. 

^^Mr. Bartley," he said with a grin, “This 
thing is way over my head. I hope to God you 
are going to work on it." 

It was a sheepish grin, the grin of a heavy-set 
man, a bit bewildered. Yet the very frankness 
of it, suddenly made me like the chief. I could 
see that he was not only a slow-thinking man, 
but, like most big men in size, was not jealous. 
He was confronted with something that was too 
much for him, and was glad for help. 




34 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Bartley turned quickly, his face stern, and 
his voice was cold as he replied:— 

‘^Chief, that man laying in the next room was 
a friend of mine, one of the finest men I ever 
knew, gentle, kind and charitable. No matter 
what may happen, no matter how long it takes, 
I am staying on this case. I will not drop it 
till the person that committed that murder is 
brought to justice.^^ 

Maybe he might have said more, but the butler 
came into the room followed by two men. I 
judged they were the two detectives who had 
guarded the wedding gifts during the night. 
One was a fairly oldish man, heavy-set, with 
a smooth face that did not show the greatest 
signs of intelligence. The typical detective of 
a cheap agency. The other was a tall, heavy, 
average-looking man, except for one shoulder 
standing quite a bit higher than the other. His 
eyes were keen and wondering as they glanced 
around the room. His name turned out to be 
Hall. 

There was little doubt that they expected to 
be questioned regarding their knowledge of the 
crime. But the presence of Bartley seemed 
rather to surprise them. I presume they ex¬ 
pected to see only the police, and when Bartley 
did the questioning instead of the chief, theirj 
A\ onder increased. 



THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 35 


In response to liis questions, of where they 
were from, and who hired them, the older of 
the two men, whose name was Wells, took a 
card from his pocket and a sheet of paper, which 
he handed the chief, who after a glance passed 
them to Bartley. It was a card showing that the 
men were detectives working for the King 
Agency of Providence. The letter was simply 
instructions to report to Mr. Rice, who would 
tell them what to do. He said in explanation 
that both he and Hall had reported around four 
o’clock the previous afternoon. 

It seemed that Mr. Rice had informed them 
that he himself did not actually see any need 
for any detectives, but had promised his daugh¬ 
ter he would have two guard the presents dur¬ 
ing the night. He had told the men that there 
was little need for them to report until about 
nine o’clock in the evening, and they were then 
to be on duty until sometime around nine the 
next morning. The men had not returned to 
the house till a few minutes before nine, when 
the butler had taken them to the library, show¬ 
ing the gifts, and also how to operate the ele¬ 
vator. 

They had decided, that in so much as no one 
could get to the top floor except by the elevator 
they would stay in the hallway on the third 
floor. There were no stairs above there, and 


36 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


they thought that with the elevator door open 
all would be safe, for the machine could not 
be started unless the door were closed. With 
it open, no one could reach the top floor. 

^^But,^’ said Bartley, ^Wou are not going to 
tell me that from the time you came in at nine 
the elevator never went to the fourth floor; that 
you two men were sitting there with the open 
elevator before you all that time.’^ 

The older of the two men shook his head:— 
‘^No, sir, of course not. There was nothing to 
do for a while. There was a girl up-stairs for 
a while, a secretary, I think. Then the daughter 
took some girls up to see the things and about 
nine-thirty Mr. Bice came in with several men. 
The men went out in a few moments, and a 
young man, I think it was a step-son or some¬ 
thing—’’ 

The butler broke in on him:— 

think he means Mr. Maxson, sir, the son of 
Mr. Rice’s dead sister. He lives here.” 

‘T don’t know his name,” the detective half 
growled. seen him around, a thin sort of a 
kid. He went up and was up quite a while, 
then he went down to the main floor, and one 
of those men that were with Mr. Rice came 
back and went up again.” 

^^How do you know that, if you were on the 
third floor?” Bartley asked shrewdly. 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 37 


^^Why, we were not up there till about twelve 
o’clock. Mr. Bice told us that there was little 
need to bother much till he hit the hay. He 
fixed us up with some smokes and the like, and 
we hung around down-stairs.” 

^^That man that returned, the last one, who 
was he?” 

don’t know. He was with Mr. Rice when 
he first went up.” Bartley turned to the but¬ 
ler :— 

‘^Do you know who it was, Richards?” 

The butler looked surprised. ^^No, sir, I never 
knew any one came in. Mr Rice did bring 
several men back with him. He had a little 
j dinner at the club last night, sir. I let them 
I out about ten o’clock. But I was up-stairs, and 
never knew any one else came in.” 

Hall, who had said nothing, suddenly 
spoke:— 

^^He was a big chap, a heavy man, black hair, 
long brown coat, yellow hat.” 

‘^Did you see him again?” the chief asked. 

^^Not in the house,” was the reply from 
Hall. 

I saw Bartley give him a look, then he 
, asked:— 

I ^Where did you see him?” 
j ^Well, we went out just then, to take a look 
around the house, get the lay of the land. Just 




38 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


as we came around near the door, this man came 
out in a hurry/^ 

^^A hurry?’’ both Bartley and I asked. 

^^He sure was. Kan down the steps, ran out 
to the road, stood a moment looking up and 
down as if not knowing where to go. It was 
raining then, and thundering hard. He ran to¬ 
ward the stores down on the avenue.” 

I wondered if we had stumbled on anything, 
but Bartley did not seem to think it was worth 
while, for he continued:— 

^^And about Mr. Rice, when did you see him 
last?” 

^^Never saw him again. Last time I saw him 
was when we went up-stairs after he came in. 
He said that he would be in his library till about 
twelve, for us to go on duty then.” 

There was a wondering look on Bartley’s 
face, and his voice had an astonished tone in it, 
as he asked:— ^Wou mean to say that you two 
men never saw Mr. Rice again after you went 
up-stairs?” 

They both nodded their heads. He turned to 
the butler:— 

‘^How about you Richards?” 

^Well, sir, I did. That is, I mean I talked 
with him a few moments after the men came 
in. I was in my room, sir, and he called me on 
the house phone, speaking about being sure the 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 39 

windows were closed as a storm was coming. 
It was just after he came in.^’ 

Bartley’s face wore a curious look. I could 
see that he was puzzled, yet what*over I did not 
know. He turned to Wells:— 

‘What time did you men go to the third 
floor?” 

“Oh, I guess it was about twelve, sir. You 
see, Mr. Rice had a feed put out for us down in 
the servants’ dining room. Told us to eat be¬ 
fore we went on duty. Hall thought that the 
two of us better not be off at the same time, 
and he went down first, about eleven-thirty. I 
went down and ate about ten minutes of twelve. 
Then we took the elevator to the top floor think¬ 
ing maybe we better stay there.” 

“Was the door open leading into the room 
where the presents were?” 

Hall spoke up. “No, sir, it was locked. We 
thought that Mr. Rice had gone to bed, in fact 
we even knocked at the door to be sure and tried 
it. No one answered, the door was locked. 
Then we decided that we might as well stay on 
the third floor. There was a wide hall there, 
with chairs and a couch while up here there 
were only two chairs. We knew that with the 
elevator door open, no one could get up here, 
so we went down and simply left the elevator 
door open all night.” 


40 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


“And you heard nothing all night?’’ 

“Not a damned thing.” 

“When you tried the door in the morning, 
after the butler and Mr. Rice’s daughter called 
you, what did you find?” 

“Why, it was locked. The girl wanted the 
door broken in, so they got an ax, and Hall 
knocked a hole in the door. He then put his 
hand in, unlocked it, and we went in. We 
found Mr. Rice dead—that’s about all we know.” 

Bartley was silent for a few moments. I saw 
Hall look around the room and then his eyes 
came back to Bartley as if asking who he might 
be. But he received no information, for the 
next second Bartley told the two men he was 
through with them. 

The coroner, who had kept silent all the time, 
now spoke up, turning to the two detectives:— 

“I will want you two men at the inquest to¬ 
morrow morning.” 

They turned to go to the elevator when Bart¬ 
ley suddenly asked:— 

“Did that man you saw hurrying, the one 
that came in last, have a cane?” 

It was Hall that answered:— “I think he did 
when he came in first. I don’t remember if he 
had it when he went out. I mean that when he 
came in with Mr. Rice he had a cane, but he 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 41 


might have taken it with him when he went 
out. Still I did not see it.” 

I gave a start, thinking of the cane with which 
Rice had been killed. I half expected Bartley 
to bring it out, and ask the detective if it was 
the one the man carried. But for some reason 
he did not, saying nothing. So after staying for 
a moment to see if there was anything else he 
wished, the two men went out. The coroner 
went with them, saying that there was no reason 
for him to stay any longer, and that he would 
call the inquest the next morning. 

After they left, Bartley went back in the 
little room, and went carefully over every inch 
of it. Evidently he did not find anything for 
I saw him shake his head when he came out. 
Then he went to the open window and looked 
out. I knew he was looking at the ledge that 
ran around the building, wondering if any one 
could have walked around it, in the darkness. 
Here he spent several minutes, leaning so far 
out that I half expected he would fall. Then he 
came back to our side. He said nothing, looking 
at the case below him, as if he had never seen 
anything like it. There were only a few parch¬ 
ment folios there, the sheepskins dark with the 
ages, but the gay-colored letters of the texts still 
retained the freshness of the day they were made. 


42 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


His next words rather startled me:— 

^^The monks spend a lifetime on a single 
parchment,” he said in a musing tone. It was 
not what I expected and it rather surprised me. 
Then his mood changed. He turned to the 
chief:— ‘What do you think, chief?” 

The chief slowly shook his head. “Not much. 
That was a bad job, a brutal one. Some one 
certainly messed up things, but I can^t see 
why.” 

“How about that man those detectives saw 
hurrying away?” asked Dunn in an eager voice. 

“That^s worth looking into,” was Bartley^s 
reply. 

At this moment the butler returned, followed 
by a young woman. A very beautiful young 
woman with dark hair, beautiful skin and a 
rather boyish figure. But now her eyes were 
red as if she had been weeping, and when she 
came to the door, after one horrified glance at 
the hole in it, she had to lean against the side. I 
judged it was the young woman who filled the 
place as librarian to Mr. Rice and acted as his 
secretary. 

Bartley hurried over to her. I saw him place 
his arm around her as if for support. I judged 
that she was very near to fainting for her face 
had grown very white. But in a moment she 
got control of herself and I saw the color come 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 43 


flooding back to her cheeks. She spoke in a soft, 
musical voice that broke:— 

‘^Oh, Mr. Bartley, is it true that some one has 
killed Mr. Kice?” 

He nodded, then spoke to her, but his voice 
was low and from where we were I could not 
hear what he said. Again I saw her face whiten, 
and she gave a quick glance at the open door of 
the little room where the body lay., A glance 
of fear and sorrow. 

Bartley soon brought her over to us and intro¬ 
duced us, and then told her what he wanted her 
to tell us. Her story was simple and without 
any value. She acted more as a librarian than 
a secretary. In fact she was a graduate of a 
library school, and her duties were not only to 
catalogue the books of the library but also to in¬ 
form Mr. Rice about them. Rice himself knew 
little about books, buying them more to make 
a great collection than anything else. I had 
thought that the bulk of his library was at the 
Hill, but she told us that most of his books were 
in his New York home. 

The previous night she had worked till af^er 
nine, making a list of the wedding gifts and 
getting the announcements of the wedding ready 
to send out. It was to have been a simple wed¬ 
ding, with only the family and one or two friends 
present. She finished her work a little after 


44 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


nine, and went to the hotel where she stayed. 
She had not seen Mr. Rice since around four 
o’clock of the previous afternoon. When she 
finished, Bartley suggested that she look the 
tables over and see if the wedding presents were 
untouched. She went down the long line of 
the tables glancing quickly over the gifts, re 
turning to say that nothing had been taken. 
Bartley looked at her a moment and half smiled. 
Then he walked over to the table near the win¬ 
dows and went halfway down its length. 

^What stood here?” he asked. 

The girl hurried to his side, the rest of us 
following her. Bartley was pointing to the 
table. In front of his finger was a mass of cut 
glass and beside it a mahogany box. By the 
side of this box was a little empty space. The 
girl bent forward to look and I saw a trace of 
astonishment on her face as she suddenly bent 
lower. 

judge,” said Bartley in his cool voice, ‘^That 
something stood in that little space. See, there 
is a faint line on the white linen as if there had 
been something that stood there.” 

The girl raised her eyes. In them was a look 
of wonder and her voice was trembling as she re¬ 
plied :— 

^'Mr. Bartley,” she said, ''that box there, has 
|5,000 in gold pieces in it. Mr. Rice gave it to 


THE MISSING BOX OF GOLD 45 


his daughter because she liked gold pieces. And, 
—’’ the voice broke in her excitement,—^^there 
were two boxes.’’ 

“Two boxes,” came the quick response. 

“Yes, sir, last night there was another box 
just like it, that stood beside it. He gave her 
in all $10,000. The other box had $5,000 in gold 
in it. It was there.” 

She pointed at the empty space, then cried:— 
“It stood there last night, now it’s gone.” 


CHAPTER FOUR 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 

F or a second all we could do was to gaze 
rather foolishly at the table. The heavy 
face of the chief had a puzzled look on it 
as if he did not quite understand. A slight 
smile played around Bartley^s lips and he was 
the only one that was not startled by what the 
girl had said. To me it seemed as if a motive 
for the crime had been found—a simple motive 
—the ordinary one of money. 

The girl was unable to give us any information 
except what she had already told us. The gifts 
had been placed on the tables the day before 
and the two little chests of gold pieces had both 
been there when she left the room at night to 
go to the hotel. Of that she was sure, saying 
that she had noticed them as she passed the table 
on her way to the door. But now one was 
gone. 

At this moment, the butler came to the door 

and informed Bartley that Mr. Rice’s daughter 

could now see him. The chief had already sent 

for another man, and after telling Dunn to stay 

46 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 47 


in the room till he was relieved, we went out to 
the hall and entered the elevator. 

The daughter's rooms were at the end of the 
hall on the second floor. The butler knocked 
at the closed door, and a man’s voice told us to 
enter. 

The room was a large sitting room, with many 
windows, the room of a person that cared for 
books and loved good pictures. These we did 
not notice for over in a great chair was huddled 
the figure of a young woman, a figure bowed in 
grief, whose hand was clasped tightly by a young 
man beside her. He was a clean-type young 
fellow, whose eyes met us honestly and eagerly 
as we approached. I knew at once it must be 
the young man she was to have married at noon. 

As Bartley approached the chair, both the 
chief and I hanging back, the girl raised her 
eyes from the floor to his face. With a little 
cry she jumped up and ran to his side. Tenderly 
his arm went around her and he whispered some¬ 
thing to her, something that caused tears to come 
to her eyes, tears which she bravely brushed 
aside. 

As the chief and I were introduced, she gravely 
met our gaze. Though she had been crying, yet 
she was trying to bear bravely what had so 
suddenly come. A beautiful girl, not because of 
her features, but because of the keen intellectual 


48 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

face she had and the softness of the brown hair. 
A girl of maybe twenty, trying to bear the shock 
of her father’s sudden death. Her fiance, 
whose name was Camp, shook our hands, but 
said nothing. 

The situation was hard for us all, but for the 
young woman and Bartley it must have been 
hardest. He had passed many days in the 
house, the friend of her father, and the sight 
of him must have brought back many memories 
of those times. So for a moment nothing was 
said, till suddenly the girl burst forth:— 

‘^Mr. Bartley, how—how could any one kill 
so kind a man as my father? Oh, what shall 
I do, what shall I do?” And her head went 
down on the arm of her chair. The young man 
dropped on his knees beside her and took her in 
his arms. Already I liked him. 

Bartley’s face was grave, but I saw his lips 
twitch. ^^Faith,” he said softly, can not an¬ 
swer that question. But I promise you that 
it will be answered.” 

She raised her head, her eyes gravely meet¬ 
ing his. Silently for several long seconds she 
looked at him, as if asking a promise. Seeing 
what she wished, she suddenly nodded. 

It was necessary to ask many questions but 
after it was all over, the information seemed of 
little value. She had spent the day before in 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 49 


the final arrangements for the wedding. It was 
to have been a quiet wedding, with only a very 
few intimate friends present. The last time she 
had seen her father had been around five o’clock. 
He told her then to get to bed early, and said he 
would see her around eight o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing. When the butler came to her and told 
her he could not find her father in the house and 
the bed in his room had not been slept in, she 
had become alarmed. At first she thought he 
might be in the library but the butler told her 
the door was locked and no one would answer. 
Then she had called the detectives, whose story 
we had heard, and with them went up to the 
library. The door was locked and though they 
pounded on it, no one answered. She became 
alarmed then and suggested that the door be 
broken through. Some one said that it might be 
possible to find a locksmith who could open it. 
But the girl would not wait. She sent the but¬ 
ler for an ax and when he returned one of the 
detectives made a little hole in the door, reached 
inside and unlocked it. 

^‘The key was inside the door?” Bartley asked 
at this point. 

She nodded and continued, telling how they 
had found her father. To Bartley’s questions she 
replied that no one had touched or moved am^- 
thing and that her first thought after she was 


50 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


able to speak, was to have Bartley called, and 
also her fiance, Odard Camp, who was at the 
hotel. The rest we knew. 

In fact for a while it seemed as if she had 
nothing of value to tell us though she wished 
to aid Bartley all she could. But any fact that 
would throw light on the murder she did not 
have. When asked if she knew the men her 
father had given a dinner for at the club, she 
shook her head wearily. 

think he told me,^^ was the reply, ‘‘but I 
have forgotten, that is, all but Judge Kingland. 
He is one of father’s old friends, one of the 
judges of the Supreme Court of Georgia. He 
would know the rest.” 

A long silence came after this in which the 
chief shifted his feet nervously. Bartley’s face 
was stern, though whenever he glanced at the 
girl it softened. Suddenly he asked:— 

“Faith, so far as I know your father did not 
have an enemy in the world. You never knew 
of any one that quarreled with him, any ill 
feeling of any kind?” 

She shook her head slowly. Then a startled 
look came over her face and she turned to her 
fiance. Bartley’s keen eyes saw the look and 
he said:—“What lust came into your mind, 
Faith?” 

She looked half apologizingly at him as if 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 51 


the fancy had been foolish, but when he asked 
the question again, said slowly:— 

^‘Why,” she started and then paused again, 
^GFs foolish Mr. Bartley, but I was thinking of 
Donald.’’ 

^^Your cousin?” 

She nodded, Bartley turning to the chief and 
me to tell us this was Mr. Rice’s dead sister’s 
son, who lived with them, a young man of around 
twenty. He again turned to the girl. “What 
about him?” 

She half hesitated, then went on slowly. “He 
had several quarrels with father, nothing to 
amount to much or serious. He wanted a larger 
allowance and when he heard father was giving 
me the gold pieces, it made him angry. He 
thought he should have had the same gift.” 

Remembering the missing box I gave a start. 
The interested look had come into Bartley’s face 
also. 

“Is that all?” he asked, noticing her face had 
suddenly flushed at some recollection. 

Her cheek reddened under his gaze and her 
eyes dropped as she replied:— 

“Why, about all, he—he—” she paused. 

“Yes?” said Bartley. 

“He said once that he thought I ought to 
marr}^ him but I thought it was a joke as he did 
not seem serious. He never liked Odard. He 



52 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


did say some rather foolish things yesterday 
about the wedding/’ 

She paused again, and only when Bartley in¬ 
sisted did she continue:— 

^^He wished to have me invite some friends of 
his to the wedding. They were people I did not 
know and father got angry at him when he in¬ 
sisted. Donald lost his temper and said:— 
^Wou wait, wait till to-morrow; I will give your 
old wedding a jolt.” 

The chief gave a start and even I was startled. 
In face of what had happened, the words of 
the young man might make him trouble though 
I saw that the girl did not attach much im¬ 
portance to them. Even Bartley looked trou¬ 
bled and asked:— 

^^What did he mean by that, have you any 
idea?” 

The girl shook her head, ^^No, I don’t know 
what he meant. Donald always was in the 
habit of saying foolish things, talking about giv¬ 
ing people, as he called it ^shocks’—but he 
never did. He talked at times rather import¬ 
antly. But that was what he said last night 
and then flounced out of the library.” 

In his heavy voice the chief spoke for the flrst 
time:— Where is that young man now?” 

Suddenly, as if realizing what might be 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 53 


thought of the young man’s remarks, the girl 
cried:— 

^^Oh, I am sorry I told you. Donald is rather 
a burden at times but he never had anything to 
do with father’s death. That would be wicked 
to even think.” 

Bartley smiled, ‘^No one thinks he did. Faith, 
we wished only to ask where he was.” 

The girl’s eyes became wider as she thought 
for a moment, then replied:— 

^Why, I don’t know Mr. Bartley, I have not 
seen him to-day. The last time I saw him was 
in the hall last evening, around ten or after.” 

It flashed over me some one had said the 
young man had been in Mr. Rice’s room, the 
library, and that he must have been one of the 
last persons to see him alive. The same thought 
must have come to Bartley for he asked the 
chief to go out and find if the young man was 
anywhere around. 

After the chief went from the room, Bartley 
tried to find out why it was that Donald had not 
liked her fiance, but at last we all decided it 
must have been because Faith was to marry him. 
Evidently the young man was jealous. It was 
right after this that Camp turned to the girl. 

^^Shall I tell him about the letters, dear?” 
he asked. 


54 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Before she could reply Bartley asked 
quickly:— 

^What letters?’^ 

The young man flushed, replying:— seems 

foolish but we had some letters sent us. I had 
one, Faith two, all unsigned.’^ 

^‘What kind of letters?’’ came the quick ques¬ 
tion. 

He flushed. ‘^Foolish letters, saying that we 
must not get married and that we would be sorry 
if we did.” 

Bartley’s face was a study. He had found 
more than he expected. Already in this house 
where nothing had ever taken place, there was 
something to be solved beside the murder. 

^Wou don’t know who wrote them?” 

^^No, sir. They were typewritten, a few lines 
only and unsigned. I can get them for you.” 

He went to a desk after the girl nodded, and 
took out three sheets of paper which Bartley 
glanced at and placed in his pocket. Then he 
asked when the letters were received and where, 
placing the dates in a notebook. Then silence 
again. 

It was the young man that broke the silence, 
his voice trembling a little, his eyes filled with 
love as he looked at the girl. 

^^Mr. Bartley,” he said, have told Faith that 


A MESSAGE FROM THE BEACH 55 


it might be best if we were married to-day as we 
first intended, in the presence of you and another 
witness. I know this terrible affair is a shock 
but as her husband I can aid her far more than 
as her fiance. She is all alone now, with no 
one to turn to and I thought—’’ His voice 
trailed away. 

As the girPs hand stole forth to clasp that of 
the man, Bartley looked at them. His voice was 
tender as he replied:— 

‘^Odard, when Mr. Rice told me you were en¬ 
gaged to his daughter he said, ^John, iPs hard 
to lose your girl but iPs nice to gain a son that 
you will love. I know of no man I would rather 
have Faith marry.’ I think if he could speak 
now to us he would say that the thing she needs 
most now is you.” 

The girPs eyes were raised to Bartley and at 
his words they turned and met those of her 
fiance. The look in them caused a lump to come 
into my throat and both Bartley and I turned 
our eyes away for a moment. When we looked 
at them again, his arm was around her shoulder. 
I could see that they had decided to follow 
Bartley’s advice. 

They would have spoken but the chief came 
blundering into the room. As he reached our 
sides he said:— ^^Can’t find that fellow. They 


56 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


saw him go out about seven this morning and 
no one has seen him since. He had a package 
under his arm.” 

My eyes met Bartley’s, the same thought was 
in each—a package—and up-stairs was the place 
where a box with |5,000 should have stood. He 
was just going to say something when the butler 
came into the room, came without knocking, his 
eyes large, trembling as if he had run up the 
stairs. He paused by the door, leaning against 
it as if for support. He tried to speak, but 
though his lips moved he said nothing. We all 
looked at him in astonishment. 

^What is it?” came Bartley’s quick voice. 

Again he tried to speak, paused, then stam¬ 
mered :— 

‘Why, sir, they just called up from the bathing 
beach—^yes, sir, called up.” 

“Yes,” replied Bartley, “what then?” 

The butler was trembling with excitement and 
could hardly continue, but at last went on:— 

“They said, sir, they said—” again he paused. 

“What?” demanded Bartley impatiently. 

“They said Mr. Maxson, sir, has been 
drowned.” 



CHAPTEB V 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 

V 

N o one spoke for a moment, for the butler’s 
words had startled all of us. The girl 
gave one horrified look at the butler as 
if she could not believe what he said; then read¬ 
ing from his look that he had told the truth, 
turned to Bartley. Bartley was startled, I could 
see, yet the expression on his face was a strange 
one. It was a look that might have meant any¬ 
thing. Seeing that the girl was too horrified 
to speak, he turned to the butler himself. 

^Was that all they told you? I judge they 
phoned you from the beach?” 

The butler shook his head, then after a glance 
at the girl spoke: ^^No, sir, they called up and 
said he was drowned. Said he went in bathing 
down at the beach. The life guard saw him 
swim out till the heavy fog hid him, then heard 
him yell for help. He swam out to get him 
but never found him.” 

Bartley’s face was a study for a moment, then 
he beckoned me to come over to the door. I 
went to his side. 


57 


58 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


he said, ^^this is strange news. It^s 
very odd the young man should be drowned just 
when we wished to see him. You better take 
the car and go down to the beach. See the life 
guard and find out all you can about it.’’ 

I went from the room, walking down the 
stairs to the first fioor and out of the house to 
the car, still standing where we had left it. 
The fog had almost lifted and the wind was ris¬ 
ing, the little spits of rain dashing into my 
face as I climbed into the car. 

The bathing beach was at the end of Main 
Street, the further end. Main Street itself, was 
the business section of the Hill, a street filled 
with little shops and stores. One side skirted 
the bay almost to the entrance that led to the 
bathing beach. Here I stopped the car and 
climbed out. There was a long bathing beach, 
though divided in two parts; one part was used 
by the cottage colony and was private; the other 
section was public. A large building where 
they rented suits, stood by the entrance to the 
boardwalk that led to the beach. There was 
no crowd renting suits this morning, in fact no 
one was around but a red-headed clerk, reading 
a flashy magazine and smoking a cheap cigar¬ 
ette. He was rather bored when I first spoke 
to him, coming to life when I told him what I 
wished. But he knew little at that. He ha(J 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 


59 


seen Maxson as he passed down the walk to the 
private bath houses, and as he put it, ^wondered 
why any fool wanted to go in the water on such 
a foggy morning/ Thirty minutes before we 
got the phone call, the life guard had come 
rushing up from the beach, saying the young 
man had been drowned. Then he had called 
the house. 

The next thing was to see the life guard who 
he said was down on the beach. I went down 
the long boardwalk past the bathing houses, 
long rows of weather-stained buildings, ending 
at last on the sandy beach. It was a particu¬ 
larly fine place to bathe. The long point of 
land, used once for a government reservation, 
ran for a mile or more out into Fisher Island 
Sound. On one side was the ocean itself; on 
the other, only thirty feet away, were the still 
waters of the bay. The beach was almost de¬ 
serted, save for several children and the life 
guard. 

Reaching his side, I told him my errand. His 
story was brief. Maxson had come down from 
the bathing house in his suit, stopping to talk 
with him for a few minutes. The water was 
not very rough but the fog made it impossible 
to see more than a few feet away. He thought 
nothing of the young man going in, for he knew 
he w^as a vei^ good swimmer. After he had 


60 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


been in the water about ten minutes, he heard 
him cry for help. It was hard to tell just where 
the cry came from, because of the fog. He 
swam out, hearing the cry once more but was 
unable to find the young man. After the fog 
had lifted he had looked again with no re¬ 
sults. 

I turned and looked at the sea. The surf 
was rising under the wind and the water looked 
black and oily. The dark threatening sky, still 
filled with wisps of fog, made it -a cold and 
dreary picture. I shuddered as I thought of 
the young man, battling for his life, in the 
sullen sea. I turned to the guard. ^What do 
you think happened?’’ 

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘^Darned if I 
know,” was the reply. ^^The fellow was as good 
a swimmer as there is down here. Maybe he 
had a cramp. Maybe he was out too far and 
was swept round the point by the tide, out in 
the open sea.” He paused, then added, ^^But 
I don’t see why that should happen. He was a 
good swimmer, and that cry I heard was not 
very far out. I guess like all of them he had 
a cramp. I did all I could but it was too foggy 
out there to see anything.” 

A bit puzzled, I stood glancing at the water 
before me, where the white caps were already 
beginning to form, but I did not think of them. 


A MOTIVE APPEAES 


61 


It had come to my mind that the life guard was 
right. It was strange that the young man, an 
expert swimmer, should have been drowned— 
drowned in a sea that was hardly rough at all. 
Still there seemed little doubt that this had 
taken place—sudden cramps and death, before 
aid could come. 

Turning away, I went back to the bathing 
pavilion and asked if I could see the young 
man’s clothes. I knew that they would have 
to stay where they were till the coroner had 
seen them, yet there would be no harm in my 
looking through them. The clerk, after I told 
him who I was, took a pass key and went down 
to the bathing house which the young man had 
used. Opening the door, he told me to enter. 
The clothes were in a mass on the floor, just 
as they had been thrown. Evidently Maxson 
was a bit untidy in his habits. 

The examination took little time for I found 
nothing in the pockets. There was no money 
nor even a watch, in fact nothing except a rather 
soiled handkerchief. Puzzled, I stood looking 
down at the blue suit. It was strange that in 
the pockets there should be nothing. Not even 
a knife, no watch and no money at all. Just 
why this was I could not see. Then another 
thought struck me, what about the package 
that the chief said the young man had when he 



62 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


left the house? True, the chances were he had 
disposed of it before he came to the shore. But 
I asked the clerk who stood outside the door 
if he had seen any package in the young man^s 
hands when he passed him on his way to the 
bath house. 

To my surprise, the clerk said he had seen 
a package, but what it was he did not know. It 
was wrapped in a newspaper, a large square 
package, which he carried under his arm. More 
puzzled, I turned and swept the bath house with 
my glance. There was nothing there, as I 
knew, yet it seemed very queer. If he had the 
package with him when he came to the bath 
house, where could it have gone? Naturally 
he would not carry it with him into the sea. 
But it was gone, and with a shrug of my 
shoulders, I thanked the clerk and went back 
to the car. 

On the ride back to the house, I ran over in 
my mind what I had discovered. The more I 
thought of it, the stranger it seemed to be. 
There was no doubt of the cry for help, there 
seemed little doubt the young man had lost his 
life before aid had come. It was rather odd his 
clothes contained no personal things, and above 
all the fact that the package was missing. One 
would have expected to have found something in 
the clothes, a bit of money, a letter or two and 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 63 

the like. But there had been nothing and it 
seemed strange. 

Bartley was waiting for me when I reached 
the house, appearing before I could get out of 
the car. He told me to drive around to the 
hotel and climbed into the seat beside me. As 
we drove along, I told him of what I had dis¬ 
covered. He listened without a word, though 
several times a little smile appeared around his 
lips. But he said nothing till we reached the 
hotel. Then as we climbed from the car, he 
simply replied:— 

^^Well, Pelt, we will go into that later.” 

I wondered why we had returned to the hotel 
but followed him to the desk. He asked the 
clerk if Judge Kingsland was in. The clerk 
was not sure but called up the room, returning 
to tell us that the Judge was out in the sun par¬ 
lor. 

We went out on the great veranda, which is 
one of the charms of the hotel, where for many 
miles one could get a view of the sea and on 
clear days pick up Block Island twenty miles 
away. To-day, however, the sea was dark and 
sullen under the rain that was now falling. 
The glass-enclosed sun parlor was at the end 
of the veranda. 

There were only three people sitting there, 
two of them women, but over in an easy chair, 






64 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


reading a newspaper, was the Judge. His face 
was the type one sees so often among our judges, 
smooth-shaven, with snowy hair. He seemed 
sixty at least. When Bartley stopped by his 
side and spoke to him, he looked at us as if 
wondering who we were. 

Bartley told him his name, and in a few 
words, of the death of the man whose guest he 
had been the night before. It was a rather 
startling bit of information and the Judge’s 
face expressed his surprise and horror. For a 
moment it seemed as if he did not believe it, but 
after a look at the grim expression on Bartley’s 
face, he put down his paper and motioned for 
us to take two chairs near by. He asked no 
questions but waited for Bartley to tell why he 
wished to see him. 

^^Judge,” he said, “both of us were friends of 
Mr. Rice, both loved him.” 

The Judge nodded, his keen eyes never leaving 
Bartley’s face, but he said nothing. 

Bartley continued, “I understand you were 
one of the guests of Mr. Rice last evening at the 
club and that later you went to his house.” 

“Yes,” replied the Judge slowly, “I was, but 
there was really only a small party of us. There 
was Rice himself. Judge Landerson of Florida, 
Bishop Work, Randerson Billings the book- 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 65 

dealer, and mjself—all old friends of many 
years’ standing.” 

I half smiled at the answer. It was rather a 
distinguished list, all men well known in various 
walks of life. If Bartley expected that any of 
these men knew anything about the murder, he 
would be disappointed. A newborn babe might 
just as well be suspected. 

As if reading my thought, Bartley smiled at 
me, then asked:— Judge, why did you go to 
Rice’s house after your dinner?” 

The Judge was thoughtful a moment, then half 
smiled:— ‘^Well, sir, that was a combination of 
circumstances. To start with, he had suggested 
we should drink a toast to his daughter. Nat¬ 
urally the fact that I am a judge of the Sui3reme 
Court of Georgia, and my friend Judge Lander- 
son a judge of the Federal Court, made it im¬ 
possible for us to do that publicly at the club. 
And then,” he half smiled, ^^there was our good 
friend the Bishop to consider. Mr. Rice did 
have something in his locker at the club and 
joked a bit about serving us. But nothing came 
of it although it was half presumed that later 
we would go to the house.” 

Bartley gave him a quick glance and said 
shrewdly:— ^What did cause you to go?” 

The Judge smiled again. see, Mr. Bartley, 



66 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


why it is you stand so high in your profession. 
There was a little disagreeable incident that 
brought it about.’’ 

‘What was that?” came the eager question. 

The Judge looked at his hands thoughtfully, 
then threw them out in a gesture. “Well, sir, 
it was reall}^ absurd. You know that Mr. Rice 
picked up a very rare book some time ago. I 
can’t say just what it was for I am no expert on 
rare books, but Billings congratulated him on 
securing it. The book cost him a pretty penny 
—thirty or more thousand dollars. I know 
little about it except that it was found in France, 
and while James Kent was trying to find out if 
it was an original, I mean the first edition, Rice 
stepped in and bought it. But actually it’s more 
or less Greek to me, though Billings and the 
Bishop were talking about it.” 

It seemed Greek to me also. But Bartley, 
though for a moment he looked startled at the 
turn in the conversation, evidently knew what 
it was all about. Seeing my bland gaze, he 
turned. 

“I think I know the book, Pelt. About six 
months ago Rice informed the book world that 
he had found a copy of the first edition of ‘I 
sonnetti lussuriosi di Pietro Aretino.’ These 
sonnets were written to accompany the engrav- 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 


67 


ings of Marc Antonio which were copied on 
ivory by Jules Romain. The work was pub¬ 
lished in 1525. The scandal it created was so 
great that all copies were destroyed and one 
man lost his head. It has been presumed that 
none existed but an agent of James Kent found 
a copy in France. Wishing to get the opinion of 
bookdealers, he foolishly did not buy it, and 
Rice stepped in and secured the copy. He had 
some trouble in getting it into the country, but 
the government at last allowed him to do so. 
Its value is great, as it is the only known copy of 
the original edition.’^ 

The Judge had listened carefully, nodding, 
^^That^s about what they were saying, but I was 
not much interested. After a while we stopped 
talking about the book and finished our dinner. 
That over, all at once—’’ He smiled. 

^^What?’’ asked Bartley. 

^^Who should come over to the table but James 
Kent himself. He was pretty angry. He ac¬ 
cused Rice of being underhanded in buying this 
book, when his own agent had found it. Next 
he said that it was not a first edition anyway, 
and he got pretty hot before he finished. But 
Rice said that it w^as perfectly all right for his 
bookdealer to get it away from Kent^s agent, 
who should have kept his hands on it when he 




68 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

had the chance. And to prove that it was the 
right edition, he asked us all over to see it, Kent 
included.’’ 

There was a curious look on Bartley’s face 
at this, but he said nothing, waiting for the 
Judge to go on. 

^‘Well,” said the Judge, ^Ve went over to the 
house, I should say it was a bit after ten. He 
took us to his library on the top floor and 
brought out the book.” 

^‘Where did he keep it?” came the question, 
am not sure, I think in his safe. Anyway 
he showed it to us. It was an old book printed 
in Italian, with a number of odd engravings.” 
He paused, and the old Judge actually blushed. 
Continuing, he said ^‘Maybe you have seen those 
engravings, Mr. Bartley, they were—well, they 
were about the strongest thing of that kind I 
ever saw. Bather bad, shocked most of us. In 
fact Rice himself said the only reason he kept 
it was that the copy was the only one in the 
w^orld. Worth all he paid for it.” 

^^What did Kent say?” 

^"^Oh, he raved around a bit, said Rice had 
done him a dirty turn, but we all went out to¬ 
gether a few minutes later.” 

^^Where did Kent leave you?” Bartley asked. 

The Judge gave a start, and a shrewd look 
at Bartley. ^^He did leave us, that’s a fact^ 



A MOTIVE APPEARS 


69 


turned back after we had gone a ways. Simply 
said good night and went back toward the 
house.” 

^^Did he have a cane?” 

The Judge thought a moment, then added 
slowly, ^^Come to think of it, he did. I remem¬ 
ber he had one when we went in the house, 
don’t remember seeing it afterward. Did not 
notice, you know.” 

‘^And he wore a black overcoat and a yellow 
hat?” 

The Judge simply nodded, I could see he was 
curious as to why Bartley wished to know these 
details, but he asked no questions. We talked 
a few moments more, then asking the Judge to 
kindly not say anything about what he had told 
us, we left him. 

I wondered what Bartley would do next but 
he simply led the way out to the car, and getting 
in we started down the road. In my mind was 
the story the Judge had told us and I wondered 
if it would be worth much after all. I knew 
who James Kent was, a wealthy broker with a 
great hobby for books, in fact he and Rice were 
often rival buyers at the sales. I knew also he 
had the reputation of having a bad temper but 
it would be absurd to think of him in connection 
with the murder. And just as I thought of this 
there rushed into my mind the picture of Bart- 


70 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


ley silently handing to us in the little room 
where we found the body, a cane, it^s handle 
stained with blood. 

It seemed that Bartley sensed my thoughts, 
for he turned and looked at me a moment, say- 
ing:— 

^Ht will have to be looked into Pelt, thaPs 
why we are going back to the house.’’ 

When we reached the house, we found, a 
strange policeman on guard at the entrance, 
who at first did not wish to let us pass. Dis¬ 
covering who we were, he apologized and we 
went in. There was no one on the main fioor 
and going to the elevator, whose door stood 
open, we went up to the library. Another 
policeman was on guard by the broken door, who 
after a word let us pass. 

The secretary was at work by the window, 
and greeted us with a wan smile. There was 
something very attractive about her. It may 
have been the boyish figure, or the touch of 
personality she had. She looked very tired and 
dark circles were around her eyes. Evidently 
she had been making a list of the wedding gifts 
for many typewritten sheets of paper were be¬ 
fore her. 

Bartley for a moment did not ask her a ques¬ 
tion, instead he picked up one of the typewritten 
sheets and studied it carefully. Evidently 


A MOTIVE APPEARS 


71 


finding something that interested him, he took it 
over to the window as if to get a better light, 
we waiting his return. 

Back at our side, he placed the paper on the 
desk and turned to the girl. ‘‘Miss Long,’^ he 
said, “jou remember that Aretino Mr. Rice pur¬ 
chased some time ago. Where is it now?’’ 

At the mention of the book, the girl’s face 
flushed but her eyes met his. “Mr. Rice kept 
it in the safe. He thought because of the en¬ 
gravings it better be placed there, besides it 
was very valuable. So it has been kept in the 
safe, though we expected to have it in a case 
later.” 

“Is it there now?” she was asked. 

“Oh, yes, I saw it there yesterday.” 

Bartley motioned to us and we all followed 
him into the smaller room where the body had 
been found. The doctors evidently had been 
there and the coroner had allowed the body to be 
moved. The room even had been put in order, 
and the floor was cleared of the things which had 
been thrown there during the ^struggle which 
had taken place. 

He swept the room with his gance, going over 
to the safe. When w^e had first seen the safe, 
the door had been half opened. Now it was 
closed but the secretary informed us she had 
closed it. In a second she had opened the safe 


72 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


and, kneeling before it, reached in for the book. 
Her hands groped in the safe as if not finding 
the book where she expected it would be. Sud¬ 
denly she opened the door wider to get more 
light, peering into the interior. After a mo¬ 
ment, without getting up, she turned and looked 
at us. 

Her face was a study of perplexity and it 
seemed to me to have even a trace of fear. Un¬ 
der Bartley^s searching eyes she fiushed for a 
moment, hesitated, then said:— 

^‘The book is not there Mr. Bartley.’’ 

He was down on his knees in a second and 
there was doubt in his voice as he asked:— 
‘‘Not there, are you sure?” 

She looked at the safe for a moment, then 
shook her head. “No, it’s not there. It should 
be, it was there yesterday but it’s not there 
now.” 


CHAPTER SIX 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 

F or a moment, I thought the girl must be 
fooling but a look at her face, white and 
filled with fear, told she was not. Bart¬ 
ley himself looked startled, something he was 
able to hide as a rule. First the chest of money 
disappeared, and now the book was gone, a 
book worth about |30,000. Evidently we 
were going to have all the mysteries we 
needed. 

After a moment, Bartley turned to the girl. 
‘^Miss Long,” he said, ^^you are sure that the 
book should have been in the safe? Could Mr. 
Rice have placed it somewhere else?” 

She replied earnestly:— ‘‘Yes. You see it 
was very valuable, and there was no place for it 
in the case just now. Besides, Mr. Rice did not 
care to show it to many because of the contents. 
Only a very few have seen it and he kept it in 
the safe. It was not a large book, you know, 
only about fifty-five pages.” 

Bartley studied the safe for a second, before 
he spoke again. Then he asked:— “And you 

saw the book last night?” 

73 


74 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

^Wes, I went to the safe just before going to 
the hotel where I am staying. It was about nine 
o^clock, maybe a little after. I always closed 
the safe when I went out. Mr. Rice and I both 
had the combination. The book was there then, 
for I saw it.’’ 

At once I wondered if in the disappearance 
of the book and the money, we might not find 
the motive for the murder. Both it seemed had 
been in the library the night before and were 
missing now. Both were of great value. But 
my next thought was regarding the Aretino. If 
it was the only copy in existence, the person who 
stole it would have something he could not dis¬ 
pose of. Bookdealers all over the world knew 
about the book for the story of Mr. Rice’s pur- ^ 
chase had been in all the papers. Such being 
the case, to steal it seemed absurd. But Bart¬ 
ley’s voice broke in on my thoughts. 

^^Miss Long, did you ever have any correspon¬ 
dence with James Kent over the book? You 
know his agent first discovered it in France.” 

‘T know that, sir, and there was some corre¬ 
spondence over it. When Mr. Rice heard that an 
agent of Mr. Kent had bought this book, he 
asked me to look up what I could about it. He 
knew little of books himself, buying them as you 
know to form a great library. I did as he wished 
and a few weeks later he informed me he had 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 


75 


bought it himself. I naturally wondered how 
he secured the book, when the agent of the other 
man had discovered it. He told me that KenPs 
agent was informed it was simply a reprint 
and for some weeks, instead of snapping it up 
at once, tried to get the opinion of experts. 
While he was doing that, Mr. Rice stepped in and 
purchased it. There was no doubt about it being 
an original—the only known copy. Later Mr. 
Kent wrote him a very angry letter.’’ 

^^Angry, was he!” exclaimed Bartley. 

The girl gave a little smile. ^Wery angry. 
He told Mr. Rice he had done a very under¬ 
handed trick in buying it. He said that it was 
not an original, and he hoped he would suffer 
for what he had done.” 

Bartley turned to me. ^^Rather an indiscreet 
letter, it turns out now,” he said. He then 
turned to the girl, asking if she still had the 
letter in the file. 

She told him it was filed away and we fol¬ 
lowed her in the other room, while she went 
through several files. Finding the letter, she 
handed it to Bartley, who read it and passed it 
to me. As I glanced at the few lines, I could 
tell that at the time the letter was written, the 
writer, to say the least, had been angry. And at 
at the end was the signature in sprawling let¬ 
ters, ^^James Kent.” 


76 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

Nothing was said for a while. Finally the 
girl asked Bartley if it would be all right for 
her to return to the hotel. She said she had 
not been back since morning and that her mother 
would no doubt be anxious. He simply nodded 
and, after an expression of thanks, she left the 
room. 

Bartley had dropped into her chair, behind 
the large desk that stood by the window. Its 
surface was covered with papers and literary 
journals and a typewriter stood before him. He 
gazed at it as if he did not see it. Suddenly I 
realized how tired he looked. There were deep 
lines upon his face, dark circles showed under 
his eyes and the expression around his lips was 
a sad one. Just as I was about to say rather 
plaintively that it must be around four o’clock 
and I had not eaten since morning, he gave a 
sudden exclamation. The only thing that seemed 
to have caused it was the typewriter and there 
seeemed nothing in that to startle one. Yet it in¬ 
terested Bartley. He took a clean sheet of 
paper and placd it on the machine, and slowly 
struck several keys. Then he took from his 
pocket a letter, glanced at it a moment and wrote 
something on the machine. He did this several 
times, then leaned back in the chair and looked 
at me quizzically: ^Telt,” he said, and to me 
the remark seemed irrevelant, think it won’t 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 


77 


harm us to smoke.” He took his cigar case from 
his pocket, selected a long thin cigar, and handed 
the case to me. Lighting his cigar, he watched 
the first smoke ring form. Then his tone 
changed. 

^Telt,” and his voice was crisp, ‘^you remem¬ 
ber those three letters that the young couple re¬ 
ceived. Those that told them- not to marry be¬ 
cause harm would come to them if they did?” 

I nodded, saying, ^^Sure. Why?” 

There was a little grin on his face as he an¬ 
swered.' ^‘Oh, nothing, but they were written on 
this machine.” 

^^They were?” I said astonished. 

He nodded, ^Wes, there is no doubt of it. You 
notice that the letters they received have one 
or two peculiar things about them. The letter 
for instance, has a little gap at the top as 
if the type was worn. Look at this.” He took 
the piece of paper from the machine and placed 
it on the desk. I went over to look at it. He 
had written a line like this, “e e e e e e e e,” that 
ran across the sheet. Every single one of them 
had the little gap at the top of the letter. To 
make it clearer, he took from his pocket a mag¬ 
nifying glass and held it above the paper. The 
gap was of course made larger and clearer. It 
seemed queer and I looked at it several moments. 

Placing the sheets of paper in his pocket, he 


78 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


continued, ^‘That^s not all, Pelt. Did you notice 
the Maybe not, but the base of the ‘P 

is \erj thick. It may be the type or the rib¬ 
bon, but there is little doubt that the letters 
were written on the same machine. And this is 
the machine.” 

^^Then,” I suggested, ^^they must have been 
written by some one in the house.” 

He nodded, ^^Oh, yes, of course. For that 
matter, the paper the letters were written on is 
the same kind as I find in the desk here. The 
same kind of water-mark, even.” 

^‘Do you think,” I ventured, ^‘that the young 
man that was drowned wrote them? He had 
plenty of chances.” 

Bartley looked at me with a very remarkable 
expression, then laughed, though why I could not 
see. 

‘Telt,” he said, ‘^you get wiser every day. 
Once you would have said something else. In 
your newspaper days you would have had an¬ 
other theory.” 

A little peeved, I snapped, ^^What?” 

He laughed, ‘^Oh, something like this. The 
dramatic instinct you know. The old fool expres¬ 
sion of the papers in every crime:— ‘Find the 
woman.^ ” 

I flushed, remembering that in the days I was 
crime reporter on the News, I had used that 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 79 

expression very often. Seeing my face redden, 
Bartley continued:— 

dramatic crime. A beautiful -secretary, 
maybe in love with the fiance of her employer's 
daughter, she writes the letters to stop him 
from marrying.’^ 

^‘ThaPs absurd,’’ I growled. Again he laughed 
but went on:— ^‘Looks feasible. Here is the 
machine and here is the paper in the desk. Who 
else could have done it?” 

His tone was such that I was not sure if he 
was serious or not. At the same time, I felt a 
little alarmed for I had not thought of the fact 
that the machine was the one the girl used every 
day, or that she might even be a suspect at all. It 
might be as Bartley said but I did not wish to 
think so. Rather warmly I said as much. 

Seeing my position, he placed his hand on 
my arm with a little pat. ‘^No, Pelt, I did not 
mean it. The girl is not the type, though you 
know you never can be sure in a crime like this, 
of any one. I said that to see your face and lis¬ 
ten to your reply. Some bright reporter will 
jump at that idea, however, or would if they 
ever knew, but—” 

What he was going to say I did not know, for 
suddenly the butler walked into the room. He 
came to our sides, acting a bit embarrassed as he 
said:— 


80 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


^^Mr. Bartley, sir, there is a man wishes to see 
you. He asked for Miss Faith but I told him 
she could not be disturbed and then he insisted 
very violently that he must see you.^’ 

^‘See me?’’ said Bartley in a puzzled tone. 

‘Wes, sir; a Mr. Kent, sir, he is out in the hall 
now.” 

That Bartley was a bit startled I could tell. 
It was odd that, just after we had been talking 
about Kent, it should be announced he wished to 
see Bartley. How he knew that Bartley was at 
the house was a bit more than I could tell. 

But there was no time for thought. Into 
the room, brushing the butler aside as if he was 
not there, came a man. A big man, with the ap¬ 
pearance of great strength in his massive figure. 
I had seen Kent several times before and had 
never liked the rather sullen face he had, a face 
of strength but the face of a man who was used 
to having his own way. One look told me he 
was a very ang’ry man. His face was purple, 
not with exercise, but with rage. His eyes 
snapped as he looked at us, and even the way he 
walked over to the desk, told of his anger. He 
gave us both a glance, and then his eyes came 
back to Bartley. 

“You are John Bartley?” he snapped out. 

“Yes,” came the drawled reply, as Bartley’s 
eyes never left his face. 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 


81 


Kent slammed his hand down on the desk so 
hard that I had an idea it must have stung from 
the blow. ^‘Well/’ he spoke, his voice loud, 
want to know, why in Hell one of your rube 
detectives should come over to my cottage and 
ask me a lot of questions about where I was last 
night.’^ 

He must have meant Dunn, but how the detec¬ 
tive had got hold of the story about Kent, I did 
not know. Yet he had, and it had made the man 
angry. I knew if Dunn had all the information 
we had regarding KenPs movements of the night 
before, he must have asked him some awkward 
questions. His eyes flashed as he repeated the 
question, banging his hand again upon the desk. 

Bartley did not answer him at flrst. Instead 
he looked him over with a rather cool gaze, then 
shrugged his shoulders and replied:— 

^Well, Mr. Kent, I don’t happen to have any 
rube detective. But if one did see you, then it 
must have been because he wished to know where 
you were last night and what you were doing.” 

Kent almost jumped in his rage and roared, 
‘‘I won’t let any fool detective come around and 
half insinuate that perhaps I know something 
about who killed Rice.” 

Watching the man’s face, Bartley drawled, 
out:—^Was that all he said? I thought maybe 
he hinted you killed Rice.” 


82 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


For a moment I thought Kent would strike 
Bartley. In fact he half raised his arm, then let 
it drop to his side. His face became even a 
darker purple and for a moment his rage was 
so great he could not speak though he tried. At 
last he stammered:— 

‘^How—dare—^you, what do you mean by a 
thing like that?’’ The next moment his voice re¬ 
turned, ^Wes, damn you, what do you mean?” 

Bartley rose to his feet, ^Why nothing, Kent. 
You said it was a rube detective. I thought may¬ 
be, if it was, he might have said that. You seem 
to be so put out, I could not think of anything 
else. There is nothing to be excited about over 
his seeing you. You were here last night, you 
know.” 

The man gave him a keen glance, then calmed 
down a little, his voice being almost natural as 
he replied:— 

am pretty angry, Mr. Bartley. This man, 
named Nunn or Dunn, came to the house. The 
first thing he told me was that some one had 
killed Mr. Rice. Then he began to ask me some 
rather personal questions about where I had 
been last night. Even hinted I might know who 
killed Mr. Rice. That’s enough to make any one 
mad.” 

Bartley agreed to the last, then informed Kent 
that we knew he had been at the house to look 



THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 


83 


at the Aretino. Kent admitted this, saying 
that he had been invited by Rice himself. In 
fact his story of coming to the house was identi¬ 
cally like the one the Judge had told us, except he 
had said nothing about returning the second 
time to the house. 

Bartley waited till he had finished, then ven¬ 
tured, ^^Why did you return to the house again, 
Mr. Kent?” 

For a moment Kent was silent and I began to 
wonder if he would deny he had returned. How¬ 
ever, after a while he said:— 

^^Yes, I did come back. I am about the most 
absent-minded beggar going. You know I had 
never seen the book before, though my agent dis¬ 
covered it. I wrote down the title page in a 
notebook while Rice was showing the Aretino. 
The notebook was in a long bill fold and I placed 
it on the edge of one of these cases. When I got 
out, I discovered I had left it, so I returned to 
the house. That was all.” 

In answ^er to Bartley^s questions, questions 
which seemed to me he studied a little before he 
replied, his story was simple. When he came 
in the house he saw no one in the living room. 
The elevator door was open, so he took the ele¬ 
vator to the library, which was lighted. He 
found his bill fold and went right out. 

Asked if he saw Rice, he said no and that the 


84 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


little room off the library was dark. He saw no 
one and spoke to no one while in the house. 
But he did not tell us that when he reached the 
street, he started to run. 

^^Did you have your cane with you?” Bartley 
asked. 

Kent was silent for a long time, then replied, 
^Why, yes, I think so. It’s at the house now, I 
believe.” 

Bartley said nothing to this. I knew the 
cane which we had found in the library belonged 
to Kent. That is, if the butler was right in 
his story. Why he said it was at his house now, 
I did not know nor could I guess. 

A few moments after this, Kent left. He had 
calmed down by that time though he never told 
us why he had come to the house to see Bart¬ 
ley. It was with a very curious expression on 
his face that Bartley watched him leave. When 
Kent had gone Bartley turned to me, with a 
slight laugh. 

^Telt,” he said, ^^Kent has the reputation of 
having the worst temper of any man on the street 
and it has gotten him into several scrapes. Why 
he came over here, I would like to know. Also 
why he said his cane was home.” 

^^Maybe,” I suggested, ‘^it was not his.” 

^^Oh, there is little doubt that it is, and there 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 85 

is no doubt he will have a very unpleasant time 
explaining why it is here/’ 

He walked over to one of the cases, bending 
over it to look at the fourteenth century manu¬ 
script that lay within. For a while he studied 
it, smiling a second at some fancy that crossed 
his mind. Then he came back to my side to 
say 

judge we had better go to the hotel and 
have our dinner. It’s rather late, now.” He 
paused a moment, his face becoming tender, then 
adding, ‘‘Pelt, I saw the young people married; 
myself and the butler were witnesses. The best 
thing, I think.” 

At the door of the library I paused for a mo¬ 
ment and looked back. The long cases of manu¬ 
scripts and the bookcases on the wall made it 
look peaceful enough. One would not think that 
a terrible crime had been committed there a few 
hours before. As we walked to the elevator and 
waited for it to come up, I ventured the thought 
that had been with me all day:— 

“John, do you think we can ever solve this 
crime?” 

He did not reply till the elevator door had 
closed on us. Then as if saying a prayer he 
turned, his face grave, 

“Solve it, Pelt? If I have any right to the 


86 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


reputation they give me, it will be solved.” He 
was silent a second and I saw his fist clench, as 
he said slowly:— 

“It must be solved.” 


CHAPTER SEVEN . 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 

I T was some time after seven when we finished 
our dinner, going at once to our rooms. 
With a little sigh Bartley seated himself by 
the window, first lighting his pipe. He took 
from the table a yellow covered book. I stole a 
glance at the cover. The title was ^^Le Livret 
de Folastries,” of Ronsard, a name that meant 
little to me. In a moment he was buried in its 
contents. 

I turned and glanced from the window. As 
so often happens after a rainy day at sea, the 
sun had come forth at twilight. The sea was 
motionless, its surface glimmering under the rays 
of the setting sun. Far off, I caught the first 
flash of the light house at Block Island and in a 
second saw the answering gleam at Montauk 
Point. An ocean liner that would dock in New 
York early the next morning was out on the hori¬ 
zon’s rim. For a moment I stood watching the 
water, then turned and, picking up the evening 
paper, found a chair. 

It was only the small eight-page sheet of the 

87 


88 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


town. But blazoned across the front page were 
the few facts of the murder. Just a few facts, 
the discovery of the body and that was all. It 
was all the paper knew and I thought for a mo¬ 
ment that after all we knew little more ourselves. 
It did say that the local police had a clue and that 
an arrest would soon follow. But I only smiled 
at this, always the papers say the police will 
soon make an arrest. 

Having nothing else to do, after I read the 
brief account of the crime, I went through the 
rest of the newspaper. There was little of in¬ 
terest. One thing, however, struck me as pa¬ 
thetic. On what might be called the society page 
was an account of the wedding that was to have 
taken place, with a list of the few guests. It 
, was followed by an account of Mr. Biceps career. 
I knew of course this had been handed in before 
the wedding, maybe the day before, yet it made 
me feel sad. How much had taken place since 
it yas written. 

The paper finished, I was just going to throw 
it aside, when Bartley drawled, ‘‘Pelt, look in 
the advertisements and see if there is a boat 
missing.” 

“A boat?” I replied, wondering why he was 
interested in such a thing. 

He nodded, and went back to his reading. For 
a moment, instead of doing what he had asked, 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 


89 


I studied him. The keen intellectual face was 
tired, yet fresher than it had been before din¬ 
ner. His long nervous hands were turning the 
pages of the book, as he quickly took in each 
page. Once in a while a little smile played 
around his lips, as if he found something that 
amused him. It was a few moments later, half 
amused, I said:— 

^^Well, here is your advertisement.” 

He placed the book on the arm of the chair 
and simply looked at me. It seemed as if he had 
been expecting I would find it. I read the five- 
line advertisement:— 

^Drifted from its moorings or post, to-day, 
a twenty-five foot motor boat, painted green 
across the bow, the name Marjorie. Reward paid 
for any information regarding it. Call Arthur, 
Giles, telephone 770 Watch Hill.’ ” 

Bartley listened gravely while I read it. I 
wondered why under the heavens he should be 
interested in such a thing. When I finisheij, he 
said:— 

‘^To-morrow, Pelt, you can look up Giles. 
His father is one of the cottage owners down 
near the golf club. You will—” 

He did not finish, as there came a knock on 
the door, and a moment later the chief of police 
and Dunn entered. The two men looked as if 
they had been arguing, for they were still talk- 


90 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


ing when they came in and the chief several 
times shook his head violently. 

Bartley found some chairs, took a box of ci¬ 
gars from his bag and then waited for some one 
to speak. It took the chief a long time to 
light his cigar and, even after it was going, 
he said nothing for a while. Then he half 
grunted:— 

‘‘Mr. Bartley, Dunn here has this thing all 
solved, says that man Kent killed him. What do 
you think 

Before Bartley could reply, Dunn, his voice 
squeaking even more than usual in his excite¬ 
ment, leaned toward us. There was an excited 
look on his face. “That’s just what I do think, 
Mr. Bartley, though I will be darned if I know 
what reason he had.” 

Bartley gave him one of his unexpressive looks 
that might have said anything, and suggested 
that he tell us what he had found. I could see 
he wondered a little just how the detective had 
found out anything about Kent. 

The detective was eager enough to speak. “I 
went over to the golf club,” he said, “and asked 
the head waiter if he could tell me who w^as at 
that party Rice gave. He gave me the names, 
but Kent was not among them. Then I went 
round to a man named Billings, who was one of 
the guests. He told me about Kent. Said he 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 


91 


came to the house with them from the golf club. 
He said also that he had a cane, but he donT 
remember if he had it or not when he came 
back, that is when he left them. He told me 
that Kent left them after they came from the 
house and walked back toward it. You know 
the detectives saw him go in and also saw him 
come out without a cane, and running.^’ 

The chief did not say anything. His heavy 
face did not wear even an expression of the 
slightest interest and he calmly continued smok¬ 
ing. I wondered if this was all Dunn had dis¬ 
covered. But it was not, the most startling 
thing came next. 

‘T went over to the cottage that Kent has and, 
when his butler came to the door, described the 
cane and told him I had found one like it. He 
said at first that it was not his masters, that his 
was in the rack in the house. I suggested he 
look. He did . so and then a bit surprised he 
said it was not there and that Kent must 
have left it somewhere. At this moment, Kent 
himself came into the hall.^^ 

Bartley with a grin asked, ‘^Was he angry?” 

Dunn smiled, ‘‘You bet he was. First thing 
he said was ‘what in Hell do you want?’ I 
started to ask him about the time he spent at 
Rice’s house and he got mad. In fact almost 
started to throw me out.” 


92 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


‘^Did you say anything about the cane?^’ was 
Bartley’s question. 

^^No,” was the reply, thought I better not. 
I knew there was no doubt it was his cane, but I 
said nothing to him about it.” 

The silence came for a while. I could see 
that Bartley’s eyes traveled once in a while to 
the chief and I could tell from the chief’s man¬ 
ner that he did not agree with his detective. 
What the difference was I could not say. It was 
Dunn that broke the silence, a questioning tone 
in his squ’eaky voice:— 

^^What I can’t see, Mr. Bartley, is why that 
man should wish to kill Rice. It seems a pretty 
good case against him. He was in the room, he 
made some excuse after he left, to go back. He 
was seen running from the house. Rice was 
killed with a cane, and Kent’s cane seems to be 
the one that did it. But why, I don’t see. Kent 
has money enough and no quarrel,with the dead 
man.” 

I could see he knew nothing about the book, 
which after all was the only motive we had. 
Bartley soon enlightened him. He told him how 
the book was secured and the letter Kent wrote. 
He added also that the book was missing. The 
story was a great surprise to both of the men, 
but there was an incredulous tone in the chief’s 
voice as he said:— 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 


93 


^^But lord, Mr. Bartley, who ever heard of any 
one killing a man for a book? ThaFs foolish, 
the world^s full of books, I can buy all I want 
for two dollars.” 

Bartley threw back his head and laughed. 
^Well, chief, so you can, but this book is worth 
about 130,000. I can tell you of several cases 
where men have been killed for valuable books. 
There is a French case where a book collector 
set fire to another man^s house and killed him, 
in order to make sure that a book of which they 
both had the only copies, would be destroyed. 
You can’t tell what a book lover might do.” 

The chief’s face was a study and he asked in 
a doubting tone, ^^Did you say that book was 
worth $30,000? Why, that’s absurd.” 

Again Bartley laughed, answering, ^^No, it’s 
the truth, chief.” 

The chief shook his head, as if he could hardly 
believe the story. The fact that a book could be 
worth that amount was something he found hard 
to understand and deep down in his heart, I am 
sure, he doubted it. But all at once a startled 
look came over his face. He turned to Bartley. 

‘Tf that’s so, then that gives a motive for 
Rice’s death.” 

Bartley was silent for a moment, his face grave 
and when he answered, he spoke slowly:— 

^^That’s true, chief, it does. The fact the book 


94 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


is missing and that this man Kent once tried 
to secure it, will of course throw some suspicion 
on him. He has a number of things to account 
for. The reason for his return to the house he 
gives as having gone back for a bill fold he 
left on one of the cases. He claimed he did not 
see Rice when he went back the second time. 
The cane belongs to him and he did not have 
it when he left the house the last time. Yet he 
tells us the cane is at his house now. Dunn tells 
us the butler said it was not there. I knew that, 
for it was the weapon that killed Rice. All 
these things Kent will have to explain.” 

‘^1 had another theory,” came from the lips of 
the chief. 

Interested, I asked, “What was it, chief?” 

“Well,” he said, half apologizing, “it was, it 
seemed to me, just as reasonable as that of 
Dunn’s to think that maybe that young man 
Maxson might know something about it. He 
said, you know, ^Wait till to-morrow!’ He was 
up in the room that night also. This morning 
he left the house early with a package under his 
arm. and the money is missing, you know.” 

“You think that package he had was that miss¬ 
ing box of gold pieces?” 

“Sure,” came the reply. “It seems more sen¬ 
sible to me that Rice was killed for the money 
than for a book.” 


conflictikg theories 


95 


‘'Well ” drawled Bartley, ‘‘if we say he killed 
him for the money, then who took the book?” 

Rather warmly came the reply, “Why, he could 
have taken it if that darned book was worth all 
that coin, and I half disbelieve you. He could 
have taken both.” 

Bartley studied his fingers a moment, turning 
them from side to side before he replied:— 
“That seems psychologically wrong, chief. The 
young man might take the money, I grant that, 
but he would not be interested in the book. 
Why, if he took it he could do nothing with it. 
He could sell it, every bookdealer in the world 
will be watching for it and the man that tried 
to sell it would be arrested as soon as he offered 
it. On the other hand, if Kent took the book, 
and I have little doubt but what he would, then 
who took the money? Kent would not. He is 
a rich man. Money means nothing to him. He 
might have taken the book,—but not the money. 
Meanwhile, both are missing.” 

Dunn gave him a shrewd look, “Then you 
think that both things were taken by the per¬ 
son that killed Rice?” 

“I don^t know,” was Bartley^s thoughtful an¬ 
swer. “The fact that both money and book are 
missing, rather puzzles me. Either one of the 
two men you just mentioned might have taken 
one of them but neither would have taken both. 


96 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


it seems to' me. Then again, it’s my opinion that 
Rice’s murder was not premeditated.” 

^^The devil you say,” came the chief’s startled 
reply. 

‘^Oh, yes, I have the idea that Rice found some 
one in his little room, and a struggle started in 
which he was killed. I don’t think that it was 
premeditated in the sense the person was wait¬ 
ing to murder him. The blows were very sav¬ 
age, as if struck in sudden rage. But the money 
and book being missing, rather puzzzle me.” 

Eagerly Dunn leaned forward on his chair. 
^^Mr. Bartley,” he said, ‘^suppose some one else 
took them, not the murderer.” 

^Wes,” came the reply, ‘H thought of that. 
But who?” 

^^The girl, the secretary,” came the quick an¬ 
swer. ‘‘She knew the money was there, she 
knew about the book and she could have got 
away with them both.” 

Bartley half smiled, as he replied, “You for¬ 
get, Dunn, that after she left Rice showed the 
book to five or six men. We are sure of that. 
Then again, if the money had been taken by her, 
its loss would have been noticed in the morning. 
She could not have known Mr. Rice would be 
killed.” 

Dunn shrugged his shoulders. “That’s all 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 


97 


right, but that book might have been there this 
morning. She knew about it and was alone in 
the room all day. She had plenty of chances 
to take the book after the murder if she wished. 
The policeman who guarded the room knew noth¬ 
ing of the book. She could have got away with 
it and she knew what it was worth.” 

It was with a sinking feeling that I listened 
to him. How much of what he was saying he 
believed I could not tell, though he seemed earn¬ 
est enough. I had not thought before of the girl 
being left in the room alone during the day. 
But as her face flashed into my mind, with the 
fine eyes that looked at one so honestly, I knew 
I could never believe she had any knowledge of 
the missing book. 

Bartley^s next words half agreed with me, 
for he said:— ^^That is, of course, all true, as 
far as you go, Dunn. No one knows where the 
book went or who took it. If you try to link 
Kent up with the murder, then you must have 
a theory that he took the book. There is no 
other motive for him than that. He might, it 
is true, kill to secure the book. If he did, it was 
done in a sudden fit of anger, one of those spells 
of rage he is noted for. But so far we cannot 
say. All we know is that both book and money 
are missing. I hardly believe that both were 


98 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


taken by the same person/’ He paused, took a 
fresh cigar and turned to Dunn with a question 
in his voice:— 

‘^Then you don’t think now, the murderer got 
out of the window?” 

The detective shook his head in a puzzled man¬ 
ner and threw out his hands in a gesture, ‘^Lord 
knows, I don’t. You say the door was locked on 
the inside. If so, the window was the only way 
out, but I don’t see how one would have the nerve 
to walk that ledge in the dark.” 

Bartley gave him a look and said dryly, ^Wou 
overlook the fact the door had a spring lock 
and all that was necessary was to close the door. 
That would lock it.” 

This surprised both the chief and Dunn, for 
they gave each other an inquiring glance and 
then looked back at Bartley. Evidently they 
had both overlooked this fact. Amused at their 
expressions, he continued:— 

^^That of course disposes of the necessity of 
getting out by the window. All the murderer 
had to do was to close the door. But it brings 
up another thing. Both the young man and 
Kent were in the room and were the last two 
that must have seen him. Maxson went up just 
after the men left, he came down in about twenty 
minutes. Kent says he was not in the room five 
minutes and that he did not see Rice at all. 


CONFLICTING THEORIES 


99 


Now where was Rice? Was he dead at the time 
Kent went in? Was he dead when the young 
man went in? We don’t know, and the young 
man they say is drowned. That’s the big mys¬ 
tery. If Kent told the truth, where was Rice?” 

‘^Could he have not gone down to his rooms on 
the third floor?” I asked. 

Bartley nodded, saying that was the only solu¬ 
tion, if he was alive at that time. So the talk 
went back and forth for a while with little re¬ 
sults. If Bartley had any clues, he was keeping 
them to himself. The chief was hesitating be¬ 
tween a belief that the young man might know 
about the crime and the other theory, that Kent 
might have killed him. But both were theories 
and that was about all. 

It was just as he rose to go, that the chief, 
with one hand on the door, asked:— 

^‘Mr. Bartley, do you think I ought to get a 
warrant out for this fellow Kent?” 

Bartley thought it over for a moment, then 
shook his head. don’t think I would now, 
chief. The inquest comes to-morrow and you can 
wait till then. Kent is a man of position and 
you want to be pretty sure what you are doing 
before you lock him up. Of course you want 
to keep your eyes on him and make sure that he 
does not leave the state. But I would wait.” 

And agreeing to do this, the two men left. 


) 

> 1 


) 3 


CHAPTER EIGHT 


BARTLEY TALKS 

F or a while after the men went out, Bart¬ 
ley busied himself with his books. There 
were a number of questions that I wished 
to ask him, but he did not care to talk, so light¬ 
ing a cigar and leaning back in my chair, I ran 
through in my mind the evidence. The more I 
thought about it, the more puzzled I became. It 
did look as if either Kent or the young man could 
have killed Rice. Both had the opportunity but 
both could not have done it. Which one did, I 
could not tell. Kent, of course, would have been 
glad to have secured the book. But still I 
agreed with Bartley that the money would not 
have interested him and that was missing also. 
At length I gave it up as a bad job. When I 
glanced up, I saw that Bartley was looking at 
me with a quizzical expression. His book was 
on a stand near by as if he no longer cared to 
read. His eyes meeting mine, he said:— 

“So you cannot solve the mystery?’^ 

I shook my head, saying nothing. For a 
while he was silent, but speaking at last:— 

“I am not surprised. Pelt. I am not satisfied 


BARTLEY TALKS 101 

that any of us have gone very far toward solv¬ 
ing it yet.” 

''Then you do not agree with the chief and 
Dunn?” I asked. 

There was a doubting tone in his voice, as he 
replied, "I am not sure. Their solution seems 
almost too simple. I can see, of course, that the 
evidence that is piling up against Kent may be 
hard for him to disprove. But I don^t know,” 

A little surprised, I ventured, "Do you think 
Kent would have killed a man for a book?” 

He half smiled, "You know. Pelt, I am a book 
lover myself. If a man must kill that^s as good 
a thing to kill for as anything else. The history 
of book collecting has a few cases where men 
have done that very thing—killed another to 
get possession of a rare book. Then again we 
must remember that Kent has a bad reputation 
regarding his temper. Years ago he almost 
killed a man in a quarrel. His money »got him 
out of that affair. But in this case the evi¬ 
dence seems to connect him with the crime.” 

He paused a moment, then added, "LePs look 
at it. Let us start with the buying of the Are- 
tino. Though the engravings are very rare, yet 
it^s not a book I would care to have. For years 
bookmen have wondered if, after all, there might 
not be a copy of the original edition in Europe, 
hidden away in some old castle or library. All 


102 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


modern copies, sold under cover, of course, are 
simply reprints—modern engravings made to 
conform with the sonnets. Kent^s agent finds 
one but foolishly is not sure if it’s the orig¬ 
inal or not. Instead of getting an option on it 
as he should have done, he goes out to ask the 
bookmen about it. While doing that. Rice 
stepped in and bought it. Rice knew nothing 
about the book, only that if it happened to be 
the original copy, it was the only one in the 
world. His securing it of course made Kent 
angry and he wrote several letters about it. 
Then comes the dinner last evening. Though 
not one of the party, he comes over to say that 
the copy Rice had was not the first edition. Rice 
then invites them all to the house to see it, Kent 
included. They stay a while, then go, but Kent 
walks a little ways with them, excuses himself 
and goes back to the house. He had a cane 
when he first went in, when he came out the 
second time he had none. He starts to run, why 
we do not know. The next morning they find 
Rice dead, killed by that cane, and the book miss¬ 
ing. Kent tells us the cane is at his house, 
though we know it is not. That’s the case.” 

It seemed very strong and I said as much. 
Bartley rather soberly agreed, adding, ^Ht’s all 
circumstantial evidence and yet it’s strong 
enough to arrest a man on, there is no doubt of 


BARTLEY TALKS 103 

that, and men have been hanged on less. But 
there is another thing.’’ 

^What’s that?” was my eager question. 

^Tt’s the fact that we are not sure that Rice 
was alive when Kent went to the room the second 
time. Just before he went up, the young man 
came from the library. We know he had a 
slight quarrel with his uncle that day. We know 
the box of money disappeared also. We know 
he left the house early this morning with some 
kind of a package about the size of the missing 
box under his arm. We know that he said 
‘Wait till to-morrow, I will give your old wed¬ 
ding a jolt.’ The facts against him are also 
enough to cause the police to make an arrest. 
The circumstantial evidence, though different, is 
just as strong against one as the other.” 

“But they can’t both have done it,” I said. 

“No,” he answered slowly, “of course not. To 
me the strange thing is this. Kent might take 
the book, that I can see easily enough. Yet the 
money he would not touch, at least I do not 
think he would. He has money enough. The 
young man might take the money, but he 
would hardly have taken the book. It’s not a 
thing one can sell, for bookdealers will be 
looking for it. The moment it is offered to them, 
the person offering it will be arrested. But 
both are gone. Did the same person take them? 


104 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


If so, was it some one besides these two named? 
I can hardly believe that either one of them 
would take both book and money.” 

That seemed reasonable, yet it only made the 
mystery darker. There was no one else that 
could have taken them, it seemed to me, and then 
it flashed into my mind that the girl had been 
alone all the day in the room. I did not even 
wish to think she might be connected with the 
affair but honesty compelled me to mention this. 

Bartley, rather moodily, informed me he had 
thought of that. He said that of course she 
would have had a chance to hide the book and 
she knew its value. Also, she was the last one 
to see the boxes of gold pieces. I waited for 
him to say that he was sure she had nothing 
to do with the money and book disappearing, 
but to my surprise he did not. Instead he 
lighted a fresh cigar and simply said:— ‘Wou 
see, we don’t know when the book was taken. 
In fact, there are a good many things we don’t 
know.” 

I could see that he was in the mood to talk. 
It was always his rule to talk over the various 
aspects of his cases, turn them inside out as it 
were. True, he seemed to jump from one thing 
to another in his conversation, but that was be¬ 
cause his mind worked faster than his tongue. 


BARTLEY TALKS 105 

So I said nothing, waiting for him to speak 
again, which he did in a little while. 

‘‘Pelt,^^ he said at last, ^Ve start with the 
first point, the locked room. We know that 
they broke the door down to enter. What does 
that mean to you?’’ 

Remembering that in the Underwood case, 
we had a somewhat similar setting, I men¬ 
tioned it. He half smiled but shook his head. 
^^No, this is different. Here we have an open 
window. True, it’s rather hard to think one 
could walk on the edge below the window and 
slide down a copper pipe to the ground. It 
was raining and dark, yet it could have been 
done.” 

I said nothing. I was willing to admit it 
might be possible to do, but somehow I had the 
idea the storm of the night before was enough 
in itself to preTent any one from trying that 
foolish thing. I said as much. 

Bartley listened to my objections gravely 
enough, though I saw a twinkle in his eyes. 
When I was through he continued as if I had 
not broken in on him. ‘^That’s all very true, I 
simply said it could be done, not that it was. 
You see it was not necessary. The door had a 
spring catch. All that was needed was to close 
it. To get in, unless one had the key, one would 


106 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


have to break in the door, reach in and turn the 
knob. That^s what happened. Did Kent close 
that door wdien he came out the second time? 
No one knows.’^ 

He paused as if thinking, then went on, “I 
looked the room over where Rice was killed. 
There were no clues, not a thing except the cane. 
Every appearance was that of a terrific struggle. 
The curtains at the window and even the draper¬ 
ies over the door from the library were pulled 
down in the struggle that swept through the en¬ 
tire room. I have an idea that Rice surprised 
some one in the room, the struggle started and 
ended in the murder. Not a premeditated 
murder, but one committed in sudden rage, to 
hush the lips of the man that was killed. That 
would make the motive seem robbery. Then 
all the murderer had to do, was to go out and 
close the door. That was all.’’ 

‘^But,” I suggested, ^^one would think he 
would have been seen.” 

Rather dryly he replied, ^Well, Dunn thinks 
he was. The detectives saw Kent.” 

Another thought struck me. ^^One might have 
thought the detectives could have prevented the 
murder. What w^ere they there for but to pre¬ 
vent trouble.” 

He turned and looked at me with interest, 
then drawled, ^^But, Pelt, those tw^o detectives 


BARTLEY TALKS 


107 


were not expecting a murder. They followed 
out the instructions that Rice gave them. He 
told them he would be in the library till around 
twelve and to start their w^ork then. When they 
went up around twelve, the library door was 
locked. They went to the third floor, naturally 
thinking Rice was in bed, and spent the night 
there. No one could get to the library floor 
while the elevator door was open. They simply 
opened it and, as far as the floor above was con¬ 
cerned, they were right in thinking it was se¬ 
cure. The great question to my mind is another 
one. Did Rice go to his rooms on the third floor, 
then return to the library and on his return sur¬ 
prise some one there, or was he in the room when 
the murderer came in? I don’t know.” 

‘‘But,” I started again— 

He broke in on me, as if he did not hear. 
“Theories they say count little, yet I don’t know. 
In this case, it seems ^s if we must take every 
little fact, build up a theory, see if it fits any¬ 
where and be ready to discard it. There is evi¬ 
dence enough to convict two men but both of 
them cannot be guilty.” 

Silence again for a while, I breaking it at last 
to ask why the young man w^ould have said, 
“Wait till to-morrow, I will give your old wed¬ 
ding a jolt.” 

Bartley grinned, “That’s a pretty bad thing. 


108 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Think what a jury would say about it. They 
would say, and you can hear the District Attor¬ 
ney in his speech to them stressing it, ^The 
young man knew then that in the morning his 
uncle would be dead. Why, that statement is 
enough to convict him.’ But it did not mean 
anything of the kind.” 

‘‘What did it mean?” I asked with interest. 

“Ever hear the expression, the inferiority 
complex?” he grinned back at me. 

Dimly I nodded, though in truth I was not 
sure. Somewhere I had heard the expression 
but was not sure what it meant. Seeing I did 
not understand, he grinned again. 

“A bit of modern psychology from Freud and 
others. We mean that subconsciously a person 
feels he is inferior to others. Others have 
more wealth, more education and greater physi¬ 
cal strength. The person realizes it, not con¬ 
sciously, but it’s there all the time back in the 
subconscious mind. Such people, in order to 
overcome it, speak loudly about what they will 
do, what they have done. Half, if not all, the 
liars are of this type. They create the things 
they wish to do. They try to overcome that sub¬ 
conscious feeling they have of inferiority, by tell¬ 
ing of the great things they wish to do, or will 
do. They are the ones that say ‘listen’ or ‘wait 
till to-morrow. I’ll give you a start.’ ” 


BARTLEY TALKS 


109 


He paused to light another cigar and swept 
on. ^^Take this young man. His mother was 
poor I find, yet very proud, always telling the 
boy that he was the equal of the others, in fact 
the superior. When you find a mother doing 
that she also has the same inferiority complex. 
She died, the boy was taken into the home of his 
uncle, a home of wealth, given money and posi¬ 
tion. But always his subconscious mind re¬ 
flected the early teaching. Deep down in his 
mind he felt that all he had was the gift of 
another, he felt that he was simply receiving 
charity. On the other side was the daughter to 
whom it all belonged. He saw her every day, 
his subconscious mind kept whispering ^She has 
a right to all this, you have not. It’s charity.’ 
So like the type, he talked wildly about startling 
people, about doing big things, in order to be 
noticed. If he did not have wealth or position, 
yet he was saying subconsciously H can be 
superior in other wmys.’ The technical term is 
that he was compensating himself. But that talk 
was all psychic, it meant little. It was simply 
his effort to show he was equal to the others—to 
be observed. So his statement Wait till to¬ 
morrow, I will give your old wedding a jolt’ 
did not necessarily mean murder. It might 
have, I admit. What I think it did mean how¬ 
ever, was this:— ‘When the time for the wed- 


110 THE SHADOW^ ON THE GLASS 

ding comes you will find I did something that will 
make me the one talked about, not you. I will 
overshadow the wedding.’ ” 

^^He did,” I said dryly, ‘^he got drowned.” 

‘^Good for you. Pelt,” came the unexpected 
answer. ^^Only I don’t think he was drowned.” 

Startled, I looked to see if he was fooling. 
There was not a doubt in the world that he was 
drowned and I wondered at Bartley’s reply. 
Seeing my look, he laughed, then said ear¬ 
nestly :— 

^^No, I don’t think he was drowned. Look the 
thing over. If he was drowned it would be, of 
course, an accident. We don’t think he com¬ 
mitted suicide and yet all the settings look far 
more like suicide than accidental drowning.” 

Bather amazed I asked, ‘What settings?” 

He gave me a rather disgusted look but en¬ 
lightened me by saying, “You found, did you 
not, that in his clothes there was nothing of 
value? In fact you said that there was abso¬ 
lutely nothing in his pockets. Now it does not 
stand to reason that, if he went down for a swim, 
there would not be a thing—money, watch, 
knife or the like—in his clothes. There was 
not, so perhaps they were removed before. 
If so, why? Then again he was a good swim¬ 
mer, yet in hardly any surf at all he drowns. 
You want also to remember that package he had. 


BARTLEY TALKS 


111 


The keeper of the bath house saw him take it 
down to the beach. The life guard did not see 
any and it was not in his bath house. You over¬ 
looked one thing in not asking the guard how 
many minutes after the clerk saw him, the young 
man appeared on the beach. But anyway, you 
did not find the package in the place with the 
clothes. What did he do with it? Where did 
he carry it? The day was foggy, he could get 
around without being seen. Now where did he 
go before he put on his bathing suit? 

^^But John,^’ I urged, ^fif he did not drown, 
then good lord, it looks as if he has run away. 
If he has, if he tried to make people think he was 
drowned, then it means he knows about the mur¬ 
der.” 

He half smiled, then replied, ‘^That^s one way 
of looking at it. That’s the view the state’s at¬ 
torney will no doubt take. But there is another 
thing might have happened.” 

‘‘What?” came my eager question. 

“Remember that inferiority complex. Remem- 
his saying ‘Wait till to-morrow.’ Now natur¬ 
ally he did not know it would be foggy, of course 
we know that. But suppose he did this. Wish¬ 
ing to be talked about, wishing also to spoil his 
cousin’s wedding day, he simply disappears. If 
they had been married at the time they planned, 
this story of his being drowned would have come 


112 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

in just before the wedding. Think of the stir. 
Suppose he went away somewhere for a few 
days to stay till the thing was over.^’ 

^^But/^ I argued, ^Think also of the trouble he 
would be in when he returned.’’ 

^Wes,” he drawled, ^^no doubt of that, but he 
never thought of it. People of his kind of a 
mental makeup never do. They never look ahead 
at all. But if that was what he did, the fog 
was a godsend to him.” 

He looked at his watch and yawned, then rose 
slowly to his feet, saying it was time he went to 
bed. Taking the hint, I went into my bed¬ 
room and undressed, thinking all the time of 
what he had just said. It might be so. It was 
odd that there was nothing in the clothes of the 
young man. In my pajamas, I came to the door 
and asked:— 

^^Do you think he did that?” 

Bartley turned from the window, where he 
had been looking out. He seemed to think a 
second before he answered:— 

^^Oh! I don’t know, one theory is as good as 
the other. But that reminds me, what color suit 
was it that Maxson left in his bathhouse?” 

^^A blue one,” was my answer. 

Slowly shaking his head as if amused he said, 
^^That’s queer. The butler says he wore a gray 
one when he left the house this morning.”' 


CHAPTER NINE 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 

A fter we had breakfast the next morning, 
the first thing I did was to drive Bartley 
to the Rice home. He expected to spend 
most of the day at the inquest, which I was not to 
attend. For some reason, he was very keen that 
I find out at once about the advertisement that 
had been placed in the paper, regarding the miss¬ 
ing boat. Just why he was interested in the 
boat, I did not know and he did not enlighten 
me. 

As so often happens at the shore, there had 
come a beautiful sunny day after the fog and 
rain. The lawns were fresh, the bright spots 
of flowers in the small gardens giving a touch of 
color to the green backgrounds. As we rode 
along the side of the bay, I could see that people 
already vrere going out in their boats, whose 
sails flapped loosely under the very slight breeze. 
Three miles across the water, the white roofs 
and church steeples of Stonington could be seen. 

Leaving Bartley at the house, in front of which 
stood a number of cars, I turned the machine to- 
toward the Golf Club. The young man I was to 

113 


114 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


see lived in another section of the Hill. It was 
a newer part, with large summer homes—a sec¬ 
tion that stretched almost to the Golf Club itself, 
and it was no trouble to find the house, a large 
rambling place of granite, which looked cool and 
new. But the butler, when he answered my 
ring, informed me that young Mr. Giles was at 
the Golf Club and I could reach him thefe if I 
wished. 

The Golf Club was only a mile away and soon 
I was climbing the hill that led to it. Few clubs 
in the country have a more beautiful spot for 
their club house. It stood high on the very top 
of a hill, from which one could see the wide ex¬ 
panse of the country and sea. I went round the 
grass tennis courts, stopped the car and went in 
to see where the young man was. I soon dis¬ 
covered that he was out on the links and that I 
would have to wait till he played the ninth hole 
by the house, if I did not wmh to chase after 
him. 

So I went out on the veranda and sank into a 
chair. For a while I studied the view. The air 
was clear and bright. Far off I could just 
glimpse the dark, tall line of the light house at 
the end of Long Island—miles away across the 
sound. Nearer, to the left. Block Island stood 
high above the water. The air was so clear that 
not only could I see the sand cliffs, but also the 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 115 


white houses near the harbor. The sea was like 
glass, a dark blue sea—scintillating and danc¬ 
ing under the sunlight. A few boats were near 
shore, and further out, a great ocean steamer 
bound for Europe. 

Finding on a nearby stand a New York paper, 
I picked it up, eager to see what they might have 
said about the murder. I knew that it would 
cause a stir, the circumstance of Rice being 
killed the day of his daughter’s wedding being 
more dramatic than the usual crime. Besides, 
he was one of the best-known men in New York, 
well-known and liked. But after I had read the 
long article that was on the first page of the 
paper, I found nothing but what I knew. In 
fact the paper seemed simply to have the bare 
item of the death and little else, though they 
had padded out the article with a long account 
of his business life. Just as I finished the ar¬ 
ticle, a young man spoke to me:— 

^^Say,” came the voice, ^^are you the chap they 
told me in the club was looking for me?” 

I looked up. Before me was a young man of 
about twenty dressed in a golf suit. His 
face was flushed from the exercise and he gazed 
at me with rather an inquiring look in his 
eyes. 

I judged it was the young man I wished to see 
and asked him if his name was Giles. He simply 


116 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


nodded, lighting a cigarette. Then I asked him 
if he had lost his boat. He grinned in reply. 

^^Blamed if I know,” was his answer. ^^The 
old boat has gone, that’s about all I know. May¬ 
be it broke away, maybe it was swiped. Do you 
know anything about it?” 

I had to confess that I did not know anything 
about the boat, an answer that caused the young 
man to look at me, as if wondering why under 
the heavens I had asked him about it. But if 
he wondered he said nothing though his next re¬ 
mark made me start. 

^Wou know,” he added, ^^that blamed boat took 
a fine time to get lost—^just as Maxson and I 
were about to go on a trip.” 

I was a little startled at this, for I had no idea 
he knew the young man that was drowned. He 
gave me no time to ask about the trip, continu¬ 
ing :— 

‘Wou know, I don’t just see how it happened 
Maxson should get drowned. He was a good 
swimmer. Why, I have seen him swim five 
miles in a rough sea. Knocked me flat when I 
heard what happened to him. We were going 
on a little camping trip in a few days. 

Interested, I suggested, ^Wou must have been 
good friends?” 

^^Oh, I don’t know,” he answered back, “we 
knocked round together a bit. He was a queer 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 117 


fellow, but not so bad at that. I was sorry to 
hear he was drowned.’’ 

It seemed to dawn on him all at once that he 
was talking a bit freely with a man he did not 
know and who had not told him his errand. He 
dried up at once, looking me over with a glance 
that told me he wondered why I had wished to 
see him. But I did not tell him. Instead I 
asked him where they would have camped if the 
boat had not been stolen or drifted away. 

I thought for a second that he would not an¬ 
swer. But evidently he decided that having said 
as much as he had, he might as well answer my 
question. So he told me that Maxson had a little 
camp on Mystic Island and that they had in¬ 
tended to spend several days there. After say¬ 
ing this, he got up from the chair he had dropped 
into. So far as he was concerned the interview 
was over and he went away, giving me a wonder¬ 
ing look as he passed round the corner. 

As I went to the car, I heard his voice evi¬ 
dently telling his experience with me to some 
friends. I smiled at this remark:— ^^Darned 
if I don’t think that fellow was a policeman or 
something. He never told me what he wished.” 

As I drove back to the resort, I ran over in my 
mind w^hat he ha'd told me. On the face of it, 
there seemed nothing of value. That he should 
have known young Maxson was not so strange. 


118 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


That they had expected to go camping the day 
Maxson was drowned was a little unusual., but 
one of those coincidences, however, that crop up 
once in a while. The loss of his boat seemed to 
mean little. Then all at once something Bart¬ 
ley had said flashed into my mind, I gave a little 
whistle and almost ran over a dog that was in 
the street. 

Bartley had said it was an even chance that 
the young man was not drowned at all. He had 
hinted that Maxson had simply gone somewhere 
to hide during the wedding. True, there was an¬ 
other angle to consider. He might have stolen 
the money and he might even have killed his 
uncle. I knew the chief had the half idea he was 
guilty of murder. If so, then he would have gone 
away. The thought came, suppose he had stolen 
the boat. He could have walked across the little 
neck of ground that divided the ocean from the 
bay. Then it would have been simple enough to 
swim out to the boat and in the fog he would not 
be seen. Something of the kind must have taken 
place, for drowning would not explain what had 
happened to the package that he took to the bath 
house. If he had been drowned while bathing, 
the package should have been in the bath house. 
All at once, I decided perhaps Bartley was nearer 
right than I had supposed when he suggested 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 119 


that maybe the young man was not drowned. 
But if he had gone away, then I understood how 
difficult it would be for him to make people think 
he did not know of his uncle^s death. If he was 
alive, he was in for a disagreeable time when 
found. 

I had reached the main street by this time. A 
long street, having on one side the wharves of 
the bay and on the other a long row of small 
stores. It was crowded with cars bringing peo¬ 
ple from the bathing beach and I had to drive 
slowly. Stopping to wait till the car ahead of 
me went on, I noticed that I was in front of the 
leading summer grocery store of the Hill. An 
idea came to me. Climbing out of the car I went 
into the store. I knew that the clerks in the 
stores at the Hill knew every person that was 
there. They were only open three months of 
the year and naturally were in close touch with 
the cottage people. I found a clerk and as soon 
as he was free, asked him if Maxson had bought 
any goods yesterday. To my great surprise he 
said he had. 

It seemed he came into the store about eight 
o’clock in the morning. He bought some pack¬ 
ages of crackers, a number of canned goods, 
soups, beans and the like and a number of other 
things. The clerk remembered it because he 


120 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


loaned him a basket to carry the goods in. 
What he wanted them for he did not know 
and the young man had not told him. 

Going out of the store, I stood for a moment 
looking up the street. Hundreds of cars were 
passing, filled with gayly dressed women return¬ 
ing from their morning dip in the sea. The side¬ 
walks were filled with a crowd of people, evi¬ 
dently one of the many excursions from some 
small country place. The popcorn and peanut 
stands by my side were doing a rushing business 
with the young folks. 

I paid little attention to the people. My 
mind was too filled with what the clerk had told 
me regarding Maxson. The young man had 
bought a great quantity of provisions, the sort 
of things one might buy if one were going camp¬ 
ing. I remembered that Giles had told me they 
had intended to do this, but he said fin a few 
days.’ One would not expect that Maxson would 
buy their food several days before they went. 
Then there was another thing. The young man 
had taken the goods somewhere for there had 
been no basket in the bath house with his clothes. 
But where had he taken them, and why had he 
bought them? That was the question. And sud¬ 
denly I decided that Bartley was right. The 
young man had not been drowned but where he 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 121 

had gone and why he went away I could not 
see. 

Dinner was over by the time I reached the 
hotel and I hurried into the dining room. Thirty 
minutes later, I went up to the room wondering 
if Bartley had sent any instructions for the 
afternoon. 

What was my surprise when I opened the door, 
to see him curled up in a chair reading. The 
smoke of his pipe curled lazily to the open win¬ 
dow. He turned when I entered, gave me a smile 
and threw his book on the floor. ^Well?’’ he 
said. 

I told him what I had found, first speaking 
about the boat and the fact the owner had in¬ 
tended to go camping with Maxson. Then I told 
him what the clerk in the grocery store had said. 
He listened gravely enough though at times I 
saw a twinkle in his eyes and at the end he gave a 
slight chuckle. Then seeing I had finished, he 
turned facing me. 

^^Well, Pelt,’’ he said, guess in the end we 
will have to go and find the young man. You 
see it looks as if I were right when I said he had 
not been drowned. I am sure of it. We will 
have to go and find him.” 

^‘Find him,” I queried, ^^do you know where he 
is?” He shook his head. ^^Not exactly, but I 


122 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


think I may have an idea where we might find 
him.” 

I had been surprised to see him when I entered 
the. room for I did not think that the inquest 
would be over till night. Inquests were, as a 
rule, long-drawn-out affairs that seemed never 
to end. But the inquest was over, and in a mo¬ 
ment he started to tell me what had taken place. 

There had been nothing that we did not already 
know\ In fact the inquest had been very short, 
with no new witnesses, and hardly anything of 
importance had been brought out. If Bartley 
and the chief expected to discover new facts, then 
they must have been disappointed. They knew 
just as much when it started as they did when 
it was over. 

The butler had told his story of the events of 
the night and the finding of the body the next 
morning. He had admitted that the nephew had 
quarreled with his uncle several times, but did 
not think the quarrels amounted to much, add¬ 
ing the young man had a quick temper. He was 
followed by the daughter whose testimony w^as 
simply the story she had told us. She also, 
though rather reluctant to admit it, was forced 
to say that the young man had quarreled with 
her father and she repeated the threat he had 
made regarding the surprise they would get the 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSQN 123 


next morning. Slie knew of no motive for her 
father’s death. 

The detectives told how they expected to go 
to work about nine but had been told that it 
would not be necessary till about twelve. They 
had gone to the library to report to Mr. Rice 
shortly after he came in with his friends. He 
told them to have lunch in the servants’ dining 
room and to go on guard at midnight, saying he 
would be in his library till then. Shortly be¬ 
fore twelve one went down to eat, leaving the 
other in the great living room, and when he re¬ 
turned the other went down. Then both went 
to the top floor in the elevator. They found the 
library door locked and they knocked but no one 
answered. 

Then they went to the third floor where they 
stayed the night, leaving the elevator door open. 
They thought Mr. Rice had gone to bed, and had 
locked the library door. They were asked why 
they did not go up once in a while to the 
library floor. Their answer was, that they 
knew the door was locked and as the ele¬ 
vator door stood open before them, no one could 
get to the floor. Then they told of being asked 
to break open the door and finding the man 
murdered. Their testimony was simply the 
story they had told us. 


124 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Bartley said the secretary was only on the 
stand for a moment or so. She told of working 
till about nine in the evening, getting the wed¬ 
ding announcements ready to send out the next 
morning. At nine she went to her hotel. She 
admitted that it was Bartley that first informed 
her the box of money was missing. It had been 
there the night before, she told the coroner, 
and the book also. Bartley laughed a little 
when he came to tell me of Kent’s appearance on 
the stand. He said that Kent was not only 
angry but he yelled his answers back to the 
coroner. More than once, the coroner threatened 
to arrest him because of his tone and manner. 
His story practically was what he had told us, 
saying he went back to get his bill fold which 
he had left. 

^^What did he say about his cane?” I asked. 

Bartley grinned. ^^Told us it was home and 
then suddenly the coroner fiashed it on* him.” 
He smiled a little at the thought, and paused. 

^^What did he say then?” was my eager ques¬ 
tion. 

^Tirst he said it was not his. Next he said it • 
was. Then he said that he was sure he had 
taken it with him from the house and that it 
must have been stolen. Then all at once, he 
suddenly remarked he was so absent-minded, that 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 125 


as he put it, 'I might have left the thing/ 
But he could not explain why it was left there. 
The coroner then asked him why he started to 
run when he left the house. His answer was 
that it was raining and he wished to escape the 
storm.” Bartley was silent for a moment, 
then with a cynical smile remarked, ^‘He made 
rather a poor appearance and I think the cor- 
oner^s jury would have held him but for two 
things, maybe I better say one.” 

^What were they?” 

He threw out his hands in disgust. ^Well, 
that jury was made up of the average sort of 
commonplace people, the fourteen-year-old minds 
that the psychologists speak of. The sort that 
bring prohibition and other reforms. They knew 
he was a rich man and that awed them. That 
was one thing. The other was the absolute im¬ 
possibility of their understanding that there 
was any kind of a motive for the crime.” 

‘‘But the book?” I said. 

Again he threw out his hands. “The book! 
Good lord, do you think that jury could ever get 
it into their heads that any one book could be 
worth 130,000? Why it was beyond them, they 
even grinned when the figure was mentioned. 
Neither could they think that a man might kill 
to secure a book. If there had been any other 


126 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


motive they might h'ave held him. As it was, 
the verdict was the usual one:— ^Death by the 
hands of a person or persons unknown.’ ” 

I could see his point, yet his tone made me 
wonder if he thought that Kent knew anything 
about the murder. I asked him a^ much. For 
a moment or so he did not reply, giving me a 
disgusted look. Then he said:— 

^‘Well, Pelt, that’s a strange question to ask. 
You know just as much as I do. If you were 
writing a detective story, you could at this point 
tell your readers that every fact the detectives 
knew, they knew also. I have hidden nothing. 
The facts are all on the table. I don’t know if 
Kent killed him. Dunn thinks he did, he is 
sure of it. And I admit that the missing book 
makes a good motive and that I don’t like Kent’s 
story about his cane. But—” 

^^But what?” I asked eagerly, breaking in on 
him. 

He laughed, ^^But then again. Pelt, there is the 
young man. The chief rather leans to him. 
That’s his one pet theory and he wants to stick 
to it. He says that there is just as much against 
him as against Kent. And it looks so, at that. 
Only—” 

He paused, then got up and looked from the 
window. The sun was bright and a slight breeze 
was blowing.^ Then he turned and finished his 


I HEAR MORE ABOUT MAXSON 127 


sentence. ''Only, as I said before, I don't think 
either of them would take both money and book. 
Yet the facts are all on the table. You can make 
of them what you wish. There is nothing I am 
keeping back." 

Again he paused, then suddenly with his happy 
smile that made him seem like a boy, he said 
eagerly:— 

"Pelt, it's too fine a day to stay in. Let's go 
up to the club and have some golf. It's early 
enough for eighteen holes, besides we have work 
cut out for to-morrow." 

And wondering what he meant by- "work for 
to-morrow" I followed him from the room. 


CHAPTER TEN 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 

N ine o’clock the next morning found Bart¬ 
ley and me down on the wharf in the bay, 
waiting for the chief. Just where we 
were going I did not know for Bartley had not 
informed me. But we were bound somewhere, 
for at our feet, tugging on a rope, was a motor 
boat. It was a long, narrow boat and it needed 
but one glance to see that it had plenty of speed. 

The chief was late and Bartley and I seated 
ourselves on the edge of the wharf with our legs 
dangling over the water. It was a beautiful 
day, the sun warm with scarcely any breeze. 
The sails of the cat-boats that took parties fish¬ 
ing hung motionless as the boats moved the length 
of their ropes with the slight tide. A few young 
people in canoes were paddling rather listlessly 
near shore and once in a while I would hear the 
pit-pat of a motor boat across the bay. 

Bartley was reading, something that he al¬ 
ways did when he had spare time, turning the 
pages of the gray covered book rather slowly. 
I looked over his shoulder to see what it might 
be but the title ^^Memoires Secrets of Bauchau- 

128 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 


129 


mont” did not give me any information. So for 
a while I glanced down into the clear blue water 
of the bay, watching the small fish that played 
around the piles of the wharf. Then I wondered 
where we might be going, deciding at length that 
perhaps we were to try to find young Maxson. 

At length we w^ere hailed by the chief’s voice 
saying, ^^Sorry I am late, but I got tied up.” 
The chief was warm, his face flushed as if he had 
been hurrying. The thing I noticed most, how¬ 
ever, was the fact that he was not in uniform, 
wearing instead a rather old blue suit that would 
have looked better if it had been pressed. 

The boat was fast and it was not till some min¬ 
utes later, when we were approaching Stoning- 
ton, that any of us spoke. I, myself, had been 
too interested in watching the low outline of the 
little village across the bay, with its white houses 
and church steeples looming up before us, to say 
anything. It was the chief that broke the si¬ 
lence first. 

In a rather musing tone he said, ^^You know, 
Mr. Bartley, Dunn is pretty sure now that Kent 
is our man. He has a man watching him and 
he says there is not much doubt he killed Rice. 
Only his motive seems so foolish. I don’t get 
any man killing another for a book.” 

Bartley, who was steering, swung the boat 
round in a wide circle and headed out of the 


130 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


river into the sound. The first swell of the open 
sea caused us to rise on its surface. He laughed, 
replying:— 

^^Oh, I don’t know, chief. Did you ever hear 
of the murder stamp?” 

The chief shook his head. 

^Well, that was a stamp that caused a murder. 
The stamp got its name in 1892. Goston Le- 
roux, a famous French stamp collector, was 
found murdered in his apartment. It was evi¬ 
dent that ordinary theft was not the motive for a 
drawer with ten thousand francs was found open 
and the money untouched. Search by the detec¬ 
tives revealed that a Hawaiian stamp, worth at 
least |5,000 at that time, was the only thing 
missing. Some time later, Hector Giroux, a 
friend of Leroux and an enthusiastic stamp col¬ 
lector, was heard to boast that he had one of the 
few specimens of the missing stamp. It was 
very rare. He was arrested and at last con¬ 
fessed that he had found it impossible to live 
without that stamp’ and had killed his friend.” 

The chief gave a little whistle of wonderment, 
saying, ^‘Good lord, killed a man for a stamp. 
It seems foolish.” 

Bartley nodded, ^Wes, that was it. And, chief, 
there are at least two known cases where a man 
has been murdered for a rare book. In one case 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 


131 


the murderer killed a friend who had the other 
copy of a rare book and then burned the house. 
It was done so he might be able to say he had 
the only copy in the world.^’ 

^^They must be crazy/’ the chief protested, an 
answer that caused Bartley to laugh. We had 
passed through the channel into the sound and 
had turned south. There was a little swell, the 
long easy roll of the ocean which comes often 
after a storm. But the sea was not rough. 
Ahead of us, a few miles south, I could see 
Noank, the shipyards being plainly in sight. 
Near us, in shore, was the long breakwater with 
the light house at its end. The sound seemed al¬ 
most deserted, though near the Race light I saw 
the white sails of a ship. 

It was some time after this that Bartley told 
us where we were going. Something, I dis¬ 
covered, he thought I should have known myself, 
though to be truthful it had never entered my 
head. 

I am taking a chance,” he said, ^^that perhaps 
we may find young Maxson on Mystic Island.” 

The chief gave a start at this, protesting that 
we knew the young man had been drowned. I 
saw that Bartley had not told him his theory 
that the drowning had been faked. This he did 
in a few words, telling the facts that made him 


132 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


think the nephew was ^ill alive. When he fin¬ 
ished, the chief shrugged his shoulders, say¬ 
ing:— 

''Well, Mr. Bartley, if it's a fact that he is still 
alive, then I will be damned if I don't say that 
it proves he killed his uncle. Why in Hell 
should he spend all that time and effort to fake 
being drowned if he did not have something to 
hide? No, sir, I tell you, if he is alive he will 
have a lot to explain to us. If you are right, it's 
strange he should go away like this." To egg 
him on, Bartley asked, "Then what about Kent? 
Dunn is just as s-ure that he knows about the 
crime as you are the young man does." 

"For a moment the chief did not reply. I saw 
his heavy face struggling with the two conflict¬ 
ing theories. But at last he said, "That may be 
true. Darned if I know. But one thing is sure, 
it's one of those two and it's just as apt to be 
that kid as the other man. Anyway, his run¬ 
ning away seems suspicious." Then as if he had 
thought of it the first time, he asked:— 

"How did you know where he was?" 

Bartley laughed, "I don't. I am taking a 
chance. They told us he had a camp on Mystic 
Island. He was to go there with his friend Giles 
for a few days. Giles' boat was stolen or broke 
away. It's my idea Maxson took the boat and 
went over to his camp, intending to stay a few 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 133 

days. I may be wrong, but we will soon find 
out.” 

By this time, we were skirting the length of a 
long island. An island almost all covered with 
trees except the one end which seemed to be clear. 
There was no sign from the sea side of any tents 
or camps. The chief told us this was Mystic 
Island. 

Bartley ran the boat closer to the shore and 
cut off a good deal of the power. want you,” 
he said to us, ^ffo see if you can find a motor boat 
tied up anywhere along the shore. The boat he 
took is too large to be pulled up on the shore. 
He would have to anchor it.” 

For a while we skirted the side of the island, 
watching the shore. I could see the chief took 
little stock in Bartley’s idea that the young 
man might be alive. Still he watched eagerly as 
the boat ran along. The island was about a mile 
long and on the ocean side there were no bays 
of any kind where a boat could be hidden. We 
soon turned around one end and in a moment 
were running along the side nearest the main¬ 
land which was about a quarter of a mile away. 

I had begun to think that our search was in 
vain. There was not only no sign of a boat, 
but for that matter not a sign of life on the 
island. Still the heavy trees which came down 
to the water’s edge would make it easy for any 


134 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


one to hide in the midst of them. We had gone 
half down the west side of the island, and as we 
passed round a little point of land, I saw a 
motor boat near the shore. Bartley saw it at the 
same time and steered our boat toward it. As 
we swung round its side, I saw on the stern the 
word ^^Marjorie.” The missing boat was before 
us. 

The chief gave a long whistle as we all 
looked at it. Then he turned to Bartley with 
an admiring tone in his voice, ^JDarned if it 
don^t begin to look as if you were right after all.” 

Saying nothing, Bartley ran to the side of the 
other boat and we looked within. It was the 
typical speed boat with only room for three per¬ 
sons. There was nothing within save the wrap¬ 
ping from some kind of a box. Bartley reached 
in the boat for this and the wrapper turned out 
to be from a well-known brand of crackers. He 
smiled as he looked at it. 

Suddenly the chief spoke up, ^^That^s the miss¬ 
ing boat all right. But you are not sure that 
Maxson was the one that took it.” 

‘^No,” came the answer, “I am not. But Pelt 
says that Maxson bought a lot of provisions— 
canned goods and crackers and the like. This 
wrapping shows that whoever had the boat also 
had some things of that kind. I think perhaps 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 135 

it will turn out that I was right in saying he 
took it.’^ 

He steered the boat toward the sandy beach 
before u's, shutting off the power and allowing 
the boat to drift slowly to the land. Climbing 
out, we secured the boat to a tree that stood 
near the water’s edge. There were traces of 
footprints in the soil above the shore and also 
a little path could be discovered. A path that 
was barely perceptible, yet a path for all that, 
which ran into the woods. It did not look as if 
it had been used very much for only here and 
there could be seen the faint impression of a 
shoe. 

We followed it, which was not,a very difficult 
task at that. It is true we often had to bend 
back branches that overhung the way and once 
or twice step over fallen trees, but it was easy 
enough to follow and with Bartley in the lead we 
went slowly through the woods. It was clear to 
see that not many persons passed that way. The 
birds seemed rather wild flying up ahead of us 
as if startled by our presence. A red squirrel, 
running across the path, paused a second to 
glance at us, then plunged into the deeper woods. 

We followed the path for maybe ten minutes 
before we found a clearing. Almost from the 
time we left the water’s edge, the path had 


136 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


wound upward. Not a very steep rise but a 
steady incline. When we came out on the edge 
of the clearing, we were really at the top of a 
little hill. It was an open space of several 
acres with the grass almost waist high. But 
the thing that struck us most was the large tent 
on the other side. 

At the sight of the tent Bartley gave an ex¬ 
pressive glance, then without a word, he plunged 
into the grass toward it. We made no effort to 
hide our approach. The thought came to me 
that any one would have been able to get away 
and hide. But when we reached the front of the 
tent and paused to glance at it, we found a young 
man there, lying on a mattress within, reading a 
magazine and smoking a cigarette. He did not 
observe us for a moment or so, his eyes intent on 
the story he was reading. Then, as if feeling 
our presence, he slowly raised his eyes. As his 
gaze fell upon us, a startled expression swept 
over his face. It flushed red, then paled. In 
a second, he jumped to his feet and in a rather 
frightened voice asked: 

‘What do you want?” 

He was a decidedly nervous-looking youth, his 
hands twitching as he looked at us. His com¬ 
plexion was sallow and his face did not have the 
most pleasant expression that I have seen. In 
fact there was about him a rather shifty look as 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 


137 


if one could not trust him or even believe his 
word. He seemed one of those people you often 
meet that think the entire world is trying to in¬ 
jure them. 

Bartley did not respond to his question for a 
moment, looking him in the eyes till the young 
man dropped his gaze and glanced away. Then 
in a rather dry voice he answered:— 

^What do we want? Why, nothing except 
yourself.” 

The response seemed not to puzzle the young 
man but it did have the effect of confusing him. 
In fact he acted a bit frightened. For a moment 
he said nothing, then suddenly with a leap 
jumped for his coat that hung on the tent pole. 
Bartley jumped for him at the same time but the 
young man got his hand on his coat pocket and 
came forth with a revolver before Bartley 
reached him. What he intended to do with it, I 
could not tell. Before he could raise his hand, 
Bartley had him by the wrist and with a quick 
twist sent the revolver flying to the ground. 
Then taking his hand off the boy, he stood in 
front of him laughing. 

‘Wou poor fool,” he said, ^Vhat did you expect 
to do with that gun?” 

The answer surprised me. His face white and 
his voice filled with rage, the young man snapped 
back at him:— 


138 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

^Wou leave me alone! Get out! You have 
nothing on me!’’ 

The chief nudged me with his arm. The reply 
was startling in one sense. Why he should say 
just what he did, if he knew nothing about the 
murder, was rather queer. In fact his whole 
attitude, his attempt to get his gun, made me 
think that he must know something and perhaps 
why we were there. The chief, I knew, was sure 
of it. And the young man was rather frightened 
to say the least. 

Whatever Bartley might have thought of his 
answer he did not say, instead he simply said to 
the young man:— 

^^Maxson, I was your uncle’s friend, John 
Bartley. You know I have visited him several 
times.” 

If he expected the answer would cause any 
difference in the young man’s manner, he was 
greatly mistaken for he snarled back:— 

^‘What in the Devil has that to do with me?” 

The answer came short and cold:— ^‘Noth- 
ing—maybe, except your uncle was found mur¬ 
dered yesterday morning.” 

For a moment the young man looked at him as 
if he did not understand. Then seeing the grave 
look on Bartley’s face, he turned and looked at 
the faces of the chief and me. Seeing the same 
answer in each of them, it suddenly dawned upon 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 


139 


him that Bartley was in earnest. The red- 
flushed face that had been fllled with anger 
turned a sudden white and he gripped the pole 
of the tent for support. He gasped but one 
word:— 

^^Murdered 

^^Yes/’ stated the chief, ^^and I—” But the 
sentence was not finished for with a quick glance, 
which the boy did not see, Bartley prevented him 
from finishing. Instead he turned to the young 
man who had raised his eyes and with a fright¬ 
ened air was watching him. 

‘^Yes, he was murdered. We came over here 
to get you and to find out why you were not 
home.’^ 

He seemed unable to speak. ’I could not tell 
if his fear was because of Bartley^s presence or 
if it had been caused by the news of his uncle^s 
death. But he was afraid of something. His 
hands trembled and he licked his lips with his 
tongue. It was not until Bartley repeated the 
question that he answered and it was in a low, 
uneven voice:— 

^Why, I came—came over here to camp for a 
few days.” Then suddenly raising his voice he 
half yelled, ‘T had a right to.” 

Bartley looked at him gravely, speaking 
slowly:— ^Wes, you had a right to. But why 
did you try to make us think you had been 



140 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


drowned? Why did you try to spoil your 
cousin’s wedding day?” 

Silence again—a silence that none of us wished 
to break. The young man, his head bent and 
eyes on the ground, would not answer and we 
did not care to speak. It was the chief that 
broke the silence. His voice was rough as he 
said:— 

^Wou better answer. As it is, you are apt to 
be locked up till you tell us what you know of 
your uncle’s death.” 

In a sudden rage the young man half stepped 
forward, his face red with anger. ‘^What in 
Hell do you mean?” he roared. “What do I 
know of his death?” 

“That’s what I want to find out,” came the 
short answer from the chief. 

Again the young man did not reply. I saw 
Bartley watching him with a rather puzzled look 
on his face. The chief was getting angry and I 
had no doubt he would have arrested him on the 
spot if he could have. But we were in Connect¬ 
icut and he had no authority there. I, myself, 
could only think that if the boy knew nothing of 
the murder, he was taking a poor way to show it. 
There had not been the surprise one might have 
expected when we told him of the death of his 
uncle. There had been fear, of that there was 
no doubt, but little signs of grief. 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 


141 


Again Bartley repeated the question, ‘^Why 
did you try to make us think you were drowned?” 

I expected the young man would answer this 
time. Instead he looked at Bartley and whipped 
back:— ^What business is it of yours, any¬ 
way? No one invited you over here.” 

In a rather cold, crisp tone Bartley informed 
Maxson who he was and why he had come for 
him. There was little doubt he had heard of 
Bartley^s name, and knew who he was. His atti¬ 
tude changed, though his face turned pale. He 
seemed at last willing to speak. 

But even then we had to wait several moments 
till in a tone that seemed to show he was picking 
carefully what he said, he started:— 

“Why, I just thought I would)come over here 
for a few days.” 

He paused, paused so long that Bartley asked 
once more, “But why try to make them think 
you were drowned? Why try to spoil your 
cousin^s wedding day? That was what you 
wished to do, I judge.” 

The young man flushed and in an angry voice 
retorted:— 

“What if I did? It was my affair. They 
would never do anything for me. Suppose I did 
try to make them think I was drowned. There 
was no crime in that.” 

“No,” drawled back the chief, “none at all, 


142 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


only it so happens that it’s rather odd you went 
away after your uncle was murdered.” 

The young man dropped his eyes, not meeting 
ours, and did not seem to care to make a reply. 
Still after a long silence he said, rather slowly 

^^All I wished to do was simply to throw a 
shock into that wedding. When I got up yester¬ 
day, I intended only to take Giles’ boat and come 
over here, simply stay away from the wedding. 
But when I saw the fog and got down at the 
shore, I knew I could make them think I had 
been drowned. I simply swam out a ways, gave 
a yell or so, then swam back, crossed the land 
and got in the boat. I had it all ready.” 

The chief gave Bartley a look that might have 
expressed anything. I could see the story did 
not impress him very much. Bartley’s face was 
grave though the story was exactly the theory 
Bartley had advanced to me when he spoke of 
the young man’s disappearance. 

In fact, after all the questions were asked, the 
story was the same. He simply had wished to 
spoil the wedding. One could tell that he was 
not over fond of his cousin and it seemed he must 
have been jealous. Yet he stuck to his story, 
saying that he intended to return in a few days. 
I judged that Bartley had been right in his 
theory of the young man having the ^^inferiority 
complex.” Again and again he told us that he 


A GOLD PIECE IS FOUND 143 

went away because he knew his not being at the 
wedding would, as he put it, make a stir. 

He was not over willing to return with us to 
the Hill. Why, I could not tell. It might have 
been that he realized what a fool he had made of 
himself. Yet somehow, I got the idea he was 
afraid of something. I judged Bartley had the 
same idea for once in a while I saw him steal a 
puzzled glance at Maxson. But in the end he 
agreed to go back. 

We took him in the same boat with us, towing 
the other one. He sat in the stern near the chief 
and did not speak for a long time. There was a 
sullen look on his face and I could see once in a 
while that his hands would tremble. He never 
glanced at any of us, sitting sullenly watching 
the water, or his eyes on the bottom of the boat. 

It was not till we had swung out of the sound 
into the bay, with the Hill only several miles 
away, that he spoke and the question made us all 
start. He tried to make his voice calm but it 
trembled a bit. 

^Was there anything missing?’’ 

A quick look passed between the chief and 
Bartley and the latter said dryly:— ^Wes, 
|5,000 in gold pieces and a book.” 

I saw the boy’s face whiten but he did not re¬ 
ply. I would have given a good deal to have 
known why he asked the question but he did not 


144 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


say. Instead he lapsed again into silence and 
for a while the only sound was the exhaust of the 
motor and the slapping of the water against the 
boat. 

Suddenly I saw the chief grab the young man 
by the arm, then slide his hand down to his wrist 
which he held tightly. Startled, I watched them. 
The chief seemed to be trying to prevent him 
from dropping something in the water. The 
struggle was short and hardly worth the name 
for the boy could do little against the strength of 
the chief. In the end, his hand was forced open 
and something bright dropped into the waiting 
hand of the chief. 

For a second, I saw the chief stare at the 
object he held, his face a study of conflicting 
emotions. Then reaching what he held over to 
Bartley, he said:— 

saw him trying to drop this in the water.” 
He dropped the object into Bartley’s waiting 
palm. I bent across to look and gave a startled 
glance. Then I raised my eyes and met those of 
Bartley. In his palm, shining in the bright sun¬ 
light was the object the young man had tried to 
drop in the bay. ILwas a fift y-dollar gold piece. 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 

F or several moments, all I could do was to 
stare at tlie gold piece as it lay in Bart- 
ley^s open hand. The expression on his 
face was one of mingled doubt and surprise. 
The chief wore a rather satisfied grin as if say¬ 
ing, that it had turned out just as he had ex¬ 
pected all the time. The young man sat huddled 
in the stern, his eyes on the water, yet even as I 
looked at him I saw he was trembling. Again 
my eyes came back to the gold piece, wondering 
if the crime had been solved at last. At any rate 
the mystery of the taking of the box of gold 
pieces seemed to have been answered. 

It was this thought that came to me. There 
seemed no.doubt now that the package the young 
man had under his arm when he went to the bath 
house must have been the box of gold. The fact 
he tried to throw the fifty-dollar piece into the 
water was evidence he knew that the box was 
missing. I could tell by the look on the face of 
the chief that he was sure the motive of the crime 
had been found and the guilty person was in the 
boat with us. 




145 


146 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Even Bartley looked perplexed as he placed 
the piece of gold in his pocket. He glanced at 
the chief, then back at the youth whose eyes did 
not rise to his glance. Then he said:— 

^‘Maxson, why did you try to throw that gold 
piece in the water?’’ 

The young -man was silent and the question 
had to be repeated again. Then he raised his 
face. It was flushed and excited and his voice 
trembled as he replied:— 

‘Why, I—knew—” He paused, then excitedly 
burst forth, ‘‘Why—I was afraid—” and he fell 
again into silence. 

“Afraid of what?” came Bartley’*s question. 

“Why—I was afraid—afraid—that you might 
think I had killed my uncle.” 

“That’s just—” burst from the chief, but he 
was stopped from finishing by a gesture from 
Bartley, who turned to the boy. 

“Maxson,” he said in a grave tone, “some one 
will be sure to say that, if they know what you 
tried to do. Your position is a serious one at 
the best. The fact you -tried to run away, taken 
in connection with your uncle’s death and the 
missing box of money, will make trouble for 
you. Your having this gold piece and trying to 
throw it away will be the climax of it all. You 
better tell us frankly all that took place and 
what you did.” 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 147 


The young man’s face had turned white as 
Bartley spoke. It seemed to me that for the 
first time he realized the bad position he was in 
and what might be thought of this endeavor to 
throw away the money. It was several moments 
before he spoke and then it was to go back to 
the night of the uncle’s death. 

He had gone to the library after the men had 
left to ask his uncle for some money. Maxson 
had been refused, mostly it seems because he 
himself had been angry and, I judged, over¬ 
bearing in his request. I could see- that he was 
a queer type. There was in his mind the foolish 
idea that he was looked down upon, that his cou¬ 
sin was given things that should be his. Why 
he thought his uncle should do as much for him 
as he did for his own daughter, I could not see, 
that is unless Bartley’s idea of his mental make¬ 
up was right. But he had quarreled with his 
uncle and I judged, though he did not say it, had 
been more than arrogant in his request for money 
—a request that had been denied. 

He left his uncle in the little room off the li¬ 
brary and went into the larger room, pausing to 
look at the wedding presents. Happening to be 
by one of the boxes of gold pieces, which natur¬ 
ally he knew about, he opened one. Then an 
idea struck him. He took from one of the boxes 
a gold piece, placing in its place a lead medal 


148 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


he happened to have with him. That was his 
explanation of why he had the gold piece. 

To all of Bartley’s questions, he made the 
same answer. He had done this as a joke, done 
it because he wished his cousin to be ^ ^shocked” 
when she found one of the gold pieces missing 
and a l^ad medal in the box. He denied that 
he had taken more than one gold piece, or the 
box itself, saying it was on the table when he left 
the room. When the chief told him that the 
box was missing, he thought at once of the gold 
piece in his pocket and tried to throw it 
away. 

I could see that the chief did not believe his 
explanation, for he shook his head as I glanced 
at him. From Bartley’s look, it would have 
been hard to say what he thought. The story, at 
that, seemed almost too absurd and the reason 
given for having one of the missing pieces of 
money was one that few would believe. I ex¬ 
pected Bartley would ask him more regarding it 
but instead he went on to other things. 

The young man seemed eager enough to talk 
now and told us all we wished. In answer to 
the question regarding his actions after he left 
the library he replied that he went down to the 
first floor, was there a moment or so and went 
back to his room and to bed. The next morning 
he got up early and left the house, going to the 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 149 


business section of the Hill where he had break¬ 
fast. He then went down to the bathing beach, 
but instead of going to the shore at once, he went 
to the bath house and undressed. Then he 
carried his clothes to the other side of the shore 
and placed them on the sand. The rest, he 
added, we knew—how he went out and gave a 
cry for aid, swimming ashore in the fog, cross¬ 
ing the neck of land and then getting the boat. 
The package under his arm he insisted, was noth¬ 
ing but a suit of clothes. 

As his story was finished, he again lapsed into 
a sullen silence. It was a remarkable story 
and one that I doubted if any jury in the world 
would believe. There seemed no reason for his 
doing what he claimed he did and his explana¬ 
tion at the best seemed rather absurd. From 
the set look on the face of the chief, I knew he 
did not accept it. 

But there was no time for words as we were 
approaching the wharf. In.front of us stretched 
the cottages and hotels of the Hill. The water 
front was filled with little boats and children 
were paddling on the sandy beach as the boat 
swept in a wide circle to the wharf. I was so 
intent on grabbing the pier that I did not bother 
to glance at who might be on it. Suddenly I 
heard the chief exclaim, ^Why! there is Dnnn, 
I wonder what he wants?” The next second, the 


150 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

boat gently struck the dock, and in a moment, I 
had it tied. 

As we scrambled out of the boat, Dunn ap¬ 
proached us. His eyes grew large as they fell on 
the young man whom the chief had by the arm. 
I could see that he was a bit excited as he rushed 
to our side. His voice shriller than usual, 
squeaked forth as he reached the chief:— 

‘^Chief, I arrested Kent about two hours ago.’^ 

The chief’s hand dropped from the young 
man’s arm as he asked:— ^Wou did! What 
for?” 

Dunn’s voice had an excited tone, ^Why, about 
two hours ago, he came running down to the 
dock just a moment before the boat started for 
Stonington. You know, we told him not to 
leave the state. I knew if he got over in Ston¬ 
ington, out of the state, we would have a hot 
time getting him back. So I stopped him, asked 
him where he was going.” 

Bartley half grinned, asking, ‘What did he 
say?” 

“He was mad, said it was none of my business. 
I reminded him about his not leaving the state 
and he said the state could go to the Devil. So 
I simply arrested him and took him up to the 
jail. When I searched him he had tickets for 
New York and a chair on the Knickerbocker Ex¬ 
press.” 


I 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 151 


I saw the chief steal a look at the young man, 
then his eyes came to Bartley. In them was a 
questioning look. The chief, I knew, was 
more than ever sure that the young man 
had committed the crime, yet his detective 
had arrested another man for it. What he 
should do, seemed to be the thing that bothered 
him. 

It was Bartley that broke the silence, ^^What 
charge did you place against Kent?’’ 

Dunn half grinned, ^Well, if I had my way it 
would be murder. But I was a wise guy and 
have him down on the books as ^resisting an of¬ 
ficer of the law’! I knew we could hold him a 
while on that.” 

Bartley nodded and smiled. I could see that 
for some unknown reason he was not surprised. 
Yet I, myself, was perplexed. Though Dunn had 
Kent in the jail, I knew that the charge he held 
him on meant nothing and that he believed he 
was the murderer. Yet the chief was convinced 
that the young man was the guilty one. The ar¬ 
rest of Kent would block the chief taking similar 
measures with Maxson for it would be almost 
impossible to hold both men. Yet it was Bart¬ 
ley’s attitude that troubled me. He took both 
of the circumstances as a matter of course and I 
would have given a good deal to know just 
what he thought. 


152 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


After a few moments’ conversation, we left 
them. The chief had decided to take the young 
man to the town for further questioning and 
Bartley and the chief had talked in a low voice 
for several moments. When they finished, he 
went over to Maxson and spoke to him. I could 
not hear what he said but I noticed the fright¬ 
ened look left the young man’s eyes and he went 
with the chief willingly. 

We came from the dock into the Main Street, 
now crowded with cars and people. The after¬ 
noon parade was on and we noticed almost every 
one riding down the long street. But I was 
eager to get Bartley’s opinion about the young 
man and told him so. 

For a while he said nothing, then suddenly 
asked:— ^‘Do you see that dog?” He pointed 
np the street. About a block away was a shep¬ 
herd dog, a country dog that had missed his 
master’s team. It needed but a glance to see that 
the dog was lost. First he would run a few feet, 
stop and look around. Then as if not wishing to 
call attention to the fact that he was worried, he 
would run a few feet further and stop and look 
around again. His eyes were turned on every 
one that passed and in them was a worried ex¬ 
pression as he once more started to run a few 
feet away. As the dog came near us, Bartley 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 153 

called him over to his side and the dog thrust 
his nose into his hand. 

^Telt/’ came the unexpected reply, ^^to me 
there is nothing more pathetic than the sight of 
a country dog lost in the city. How bravely he 
will try to hide his fear by making believe he 
knows where he is going. How eagerly he 
glances at every passer-by, hoping it is his mas¬ 
ter; and how sorrowful is the look in his eyes as 
he realizes that he is lost, that his God has 
gone.’^ He paused, stroking the brown head of 
the dog, then continued, ^^Maxson makes me 
think of this dog.” 

^‘He does?” I asked in surprise. 

“Yes, he does. He is that nervous, neurotic 
type that tries to hide his fear of the world un¬ 
der a brave front. No one knows how much that 
type of people suffer in this matter-of-fact world. 
The chief thinks his story is absurd. It may 
not all be true, but iCs not absurd. The things 
he did, his seeking for ^compensation’ are all 
true to type. He would do the things he claims 
to have done and for the reason he gave. It’s 
true to all modern psychology.” 

We had started up the long hill to the hotel 
and the dog was at Bartley’s heels. He had 
found a friend and was going to stick. Bartley 
laughed when I mentioned it, saying that he 


154 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


would take care of the dog till the owner was 
found. He reached down as he spoke to give the 
animal a little slap. Then he came back to 
Maxson. 

^^Maxson/^ he said, ^^will have a good many 
things to explain. He will find that few believe 
what he says. Yet I think the young man tells 
the truth. True, his nature is a cruel one. He 
wished to harm his cousin, but when all is said 
and done, he is not responsible for that. It^s 
that inferiority complex’ that I spoke about. 
Perhaps this will drive it from him, a shock 
often does—and he certainly has had a shock.” 

^^But what about Kent?” I asked. 

He was thoughtful, then answered, ^‘As I said 
last night. Pelt, you know all that I do. He 
may have killed Kice, he may not have. The 
evidence is strong, his explanation seems weak. 
But the case against Maxson is just as strong 
and his explanation just as weak. This arrest 
of Kent will make trouble for he has money. 
By to-morrow you will see the big criminal 
lawyers down and then the fun will start.” 

We had reached the hotel and I went up to 
the room to wash, Bartley taking the dog round 
to the porter to be cared for and fed. It was 
some time before he returned and the first thing 
he did was to bathe and change into a suit of 
white flannels. This done, with a little sigh he 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 155 


sank into his chair and read for several hours. 

When we came out of the dining room after 
dinner, I bought several papers and we went out 
on the wide veranda, seating ourselves near the 
sun parlor. For a moment I glanced at the 
smooth sea, silent and still under the evening 
sun. Then I turned to the papers. 

The local paper had a long account of the in¬ 
quest and summed it all up by saying that the 
testimony threw no light on the crime. This 
was rather a surprise, till it dawned on me that 
Kent^s great wealth was enough to throw all 
suspicion away from him in the eyes of a local 
reporter. The New York papers went a great 
deal further. They told frankly the evidence, 
saying that it seemed a case in which the guilt 
could point to one of two parties. Strangest of 
all, there was not one word in the local paper re¬ 
garding the arrest of Kent. I remarked about 
this as I tossed the paper over to Bartley. He 
read the article before he spoke, then in an 
amused tone replied:— 

^Tt looks to me. Pelt, that KenPs wealth has 
started to work. I have no doubt that he has 
some good lawyer on the case now. They would 
threaten the paper with libel suits if they men¬ 
tioned his name overmuch. ThaPs why you 
don’t see much about it.” 

Just at that moment, a tall distinguished man 


156 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


stopped by our sides and slapped Bartley on the 
shoulder. He looked up, saying but a word, 
''Billings.'^ 

The bookdealer was known the country over, 
perhaps it’s better to say the world. He was a 
buyer for a few rich men, men whose money 
enabled them to purchase what they wished. A 
tall man with a humorous face that was always 
smiling. He dropped into a chair by our side. 

Bartley turned to him, saying, ‘^Billings, I 
wanted to see you and ask you a few questions.” 

The bookdealer, lighting a cigarette, only said 
^^Shoot!” 

^^When Bice took you men up to his library, 
what were you talking about?” 

‘‘Why, that Aretino. He went right into his 
small room and brought it out. I remember he 
said ‘It’s a pretty small book to be worth $30,- 
000.’ We were talking about that till he opened 
it, and showed it to us. The butler came in just 
then for a moment and Rice went over to speak 
to two men. But they went right out and all 
of our conversation came back to the book. We 
only stayed a few moments.” 

“Did Kent express himself regarding the 
book?” 

Billings laughed, “He sure did. Said it was 
a fake, that if he had seen the engravings he 


A CONFESSION OF MURDER 157 


would not have taken it even if it was the only 
copy in the world/’ There came into his voice 
the tone of an expert. ^^That was, of course, 
foolish, for the book is worth |30,000.” 

Bartley glanced at him, ^‘You know it’s gone?” 

The bookdealer studied his hands for a few 
moments, replying in a dry voice, ^^So I hear. 
It’s rather foolish to think of. The book cannot 
be sold and the only thing one could do would 
be to place it in some collection. Even then it 
would not be sold or even shown for that matter.” 

The conversation went back and forth, being 
mostly about books. I listened but did not 
speak, the talk being a bit too technical for me. 
In about an hour, Billings excused himself and 
left. Just as he went around the corner, a bell 
boy came up to Bartley and told him he was 
wanted on the phone. 

I spent the time till he returned, watching 
several torpedo boats speeding down the sound, 
bound for Newport. Next I listened to the 
rather inane talk of two women near me who did 
not try to lower their voices. I was aroused by 
Bartley’s hand on my shoulder. 

I glanced up. The expression on his face was 
one of amusement and yet surprise, as he stood 
looking down at me. ‘Telt,” he said, ‘Ve must 
go to Westerly.” Seeing that he had not fin- 


158 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


ished, I waited for his next words. They came 
in a low tone, after a glance to see that no one 
could hear. 

^^That telephone call was from the chief. He 
is up in the air now for fair. He just got an 
unsigned letter.’’ 

He smiled and I asked, ^^An unsigned letter?” 

He nodded, then half laughed, ^Wes, an un¬ 
signed letter! In it some one confesses that 
he killed Rice I” 


CHAPTER TWELVE 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 

I T was some time after we left the Hill that 
I ventured to ask Bartley, who was driving 
the car, what he thought of the chiefs 
message. To me, it had been perhaps the most 
unexpected thing that could have happened. I 
had long since made up my mind that either 
Kent or Maxson would be charged with the mur¬ 
der in the end. I was unable’ to decide which 
one it would be because the evidence seemed 
equally strong against either one of them, though 
I leaned a little toward thinking that Kent was 
the guilty man. But now, some one had con¬ 
fessed that he had killed Rice. If it was true, 
then all our theories were wrong. I said as 
much to Bartley. 

He listened gravely enough to what I ven¬ 
tured, not replying till I had finished. Then he 
simply grinned as he replied, ‘Tf s all true what 
you say. Pelt; the chiefs message is something 
we did not expect. Still you want to remember 
that, in eveiy mysterious murder, there are 
always letters saying that the writer committed 
the deed. In the Elwell case alone, I under- 

159 


160 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


stand there were over twenty letters of that kind’ 
from as many different people all of whom 
claimed to have killed him. This may be of that 
sort.’^ 

^^But why/’ I suggested, ‘^should any one say 
he committed a murder if he has not?” 

He laughed, ^^Oh, it’s the psychological make¬ 
up of the persons writing them craving for 
notoriety, perhaps. Then again, I have no 
doubt that a good many of the letters come from 
people who are unbalanced.” 

It was only a short drive to the town. The 
road wound by a little river for a ways, a mere 
thread of a river, flowing between green flelds 
and tree-covered banks. Then for a while the 
road swept up a long steady incline, dropping 
down at last into the chief residential street of 
the town; a street with great elm trees on each 
side, whose branches formed an arch of leaves 
above our heads. In a few moments we had run 
past the colonial houses, each with its lawn 
and gayly colored garden, and had turned into 
the heart of the town itself. 

We stopped in front of the court house, a 
massive building of granite, which also contained 
the jail. Across from us was a great park with 
its close-cropped grass and a fountain playing 
in the evening air. A band concert had started 
and the park was filled with strolling couples, 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 101 

the music coming faintly to our ears as we 
climbed the steps of the court house. 

The chief was in his office, seated back of a 
great desk. Dunn was leaning over its surface 
and eagerly talking with him. The chief rose 
with an air of relief as we came in. He reached 
across the desk for a piece of paper, handing it 
to Bartley, saying, found this darned thing, 
when I got up here this afternoon.” 

Bartley read it, passing it at last to me with a 
quizzical look. It was a single sheet of type¬ 
written paper, but with no date and of course 
unsigned. It read:— 

“Chief, you think you have the man that killed 
Rice at the Hill but you are wrong, as you are 
most times. You can let that man go, he did 
not kill him, he could have, but he did not. I 
tell you so. I killed HIM, I came in the house, 
just after that man Kent, and hid back of the big 
curtains down stairs, till he came out, then I 
went up in the elevator. I went in the room, 
and killed him with a cane. God told me to do 
it. He was one of those men that grind the 
poor, he deserved to be killed.” 

It was a queer letter at the best. The lan¬ 
guage seemed that of an uneducated man and 
perhaps a deranged man. The sentences had no 
construction, still that might have been purposely 
done. I could not help but notice that the 


162 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


details of the house were very meager. Any one 
reading the newspaper story of the crime could 
have secured all the information that was in the 
letter. 

The chief had watched both of us and, as I 
placed the letter back on the table, he said:— 
donT know if there is anything in it. But 
at least the writer said he killed Kice and I 
would like to get my hands on him. The papers 
will raise Cain over it, anyway.” 

Bartley picked the letter up from the table 
and looked at it again. Then he turned to the 
chief. think, chief, when you do lay your 
hands on the man that wrote this letter, you 
will find he is some one mentally deranged. You 
notice he said ^God told me to do it.’ No 
nornral person would say that, a religious fa¬ 
natic might. Then again. Rice never ‘ground 
down the poor.’ His w^ealth was made honestly 
and those that worked for him, loved him. He 
did not have an enemy in the world that I ever 
heard of. Of course there is one chance in a 
million that the writer told the truth. That’s 
the only reason to be interested in the letter. 
You ought to get him.” 

“But—” broke in Dunn, “how can we get 
him when we don’t know who wrote it?” 

Bartley grinned, “That should be easy, Dunn. 
You have the envelope the letter came in. It’s 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 


163 


stamped the time it was received at the Post 
Office. If it was dropped in a box at the Post 
Office, the stamping would tell about the time. 
If a carrier brought it in it would be even easier.’’ 

^‘Easier?” asked the chief in wonder. 

^‘Sure, easier. The carriers get in at different 
times. You only have four or five anyway. 
Just as soon as they get in, the mail picked up 
by the carrier from the boxes is stamped with 
the time received. All you have to do in that 
case is find out which carrier brought it in, and 
then watch the boxes. There can’t be more 
than three on each route.” 

‘^Do you think there will be any more letters?” 
came the question. 

Bartley nodded, “Of course there will. If the 
man is deranged, if there is a little mental 
weakness, there will be other letters. All you 
have to do is to watch the boxes.” 

Dunn turned to the chief, “I will look after 
that. Let me take the envelope and I will go 
over to the Post Office.” 

The chief rummaged in his desk, finally finding 
the envelope which he gave to Dunn. The de¬ 
tective glanced at it for a moment before he left 
the room. After his departure, the chief turned 
to Bartley. His face wore a troubled look and 
I could tell he seemed to be disturbed. 

“Mr. Bartley,” he said, “this case has got my 


164 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


goat. Down-stairs that man Kent is howling 
his head off. He sa^^s he will sue the town and 
threatens to have me thrown out of my job. He 
had me get a lawyer, Judge Grant, and the 
Judge has sent off a bunch of telegrams, where 
I do not know.’’ 

Bartley simply grinned, but said nothing. 
Lighting his old black pipe, the chief con¬ 
tinued :— 

^‘Darned if I know what to think. The evi¬ 
dence against Kent is strong enough to hold him 
for -a while. Then that young man told the 
wildest yarn* I ever heard in my life. I don’t see 
how any one can believe all that stu:ff he got off 
about running away in order to frighten that 
cousin of his. That fifty-dollar gold piece he 
was trying to throw overboard when I grabbed 
it, and his story about taking just one from the 
box looks fishy.” He paused and gave a sigh. 

I half smiled. The chief was bewildered and, 
for that matter, so was I. The crime had devel¬ 
oped angles that were over his head and with the 
two conflicting theories before him, he did not 
know where to turn. He shifted his heavy frame 
in his chair and looked appealingly at Bartley, 
his big eyes sober and tired. Yet I could not 
help liking him for his good nature and frank¬ 
ness. 

But Bartley did not give him much satisfac- 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 


165 


tion. They talked the thing over for a while, 
but reached no conclusion. The chief informed 
us that Maxson had answered all his questions, 
but had nothing new to tell. The boy had acted 
frightened and nervous, but I could well under¬ 
stand why he should be. After questioning him, 
the chief had let him go back to the Hill, Max- 
son promising to report to him the next day. 
Then rising from his chair, he stated the District 
Atorney wished to see us. 

He took us to the next floor, opening the door 
of an office. The walls were lined with countless 
law books and a number of green filing cases. 
By an open window, smoking, sat) a man of about 
forty who rose when the chief entered and came 
to our side. He turned out to be the District 
Attorney and, after introducing us, the chief left 
the room. 

It took but a moment for the lawyer, who told 
us his name was Wilcox, to discover that both 
he and Bartley were Harvard men, a fact which 
seemed to place them on good footing at once. 
He motioned us to several chairs by the window, 
and we seated ourselves. 

For a second he said nothing. There floated 
through the window the strains of a popular 
song played by the band, and the snatches of 
conversation from the people in the park across 
the street. Then he spoke:— 


166 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


^^Mr. Bartley/’ he said, ^^my office don’t as a 
rule mix up in a criminal case till after the 
indictment has been brought in. But this case 
seems rather unusual and I thought you would 
be willing to give me some information.” Bart¬ 
ley simply nodded, and the attorney went on:— 

^^Both Dunn and the chief have told me the 
grounds on which they are holding Kent. He 
is, as you know, wealthy and has powerful 
friends. They seem strong enough, in fact I 
might add, that I think with even the evidence 
they now hold against him, I could get a con¬ 
viction before a jury.” 

He paused, looking at Bartley as if he 
wished confirmation for this statement. Bart¬ 
ley agreed, saying nothing else. The lawyer 
played with his cigar, his face thoughtful, then 
he continued:— 

^‘But I find that the chief thinks he has almost 
as strong a case against the young man. In fact 
if it were not that Kent is already in a cell, I 
think the chief would have arrested Maxson.” 

He looked at his hand a moment, then smiled, 
^^But they cannot both be guilty of the crime. 
In fact the evidence is so conflicting, so strong 
against each one, that I wished to ask you— 
He paused, as if not wishing to finish his sen¬ 
tence, and when he went on I judged that he had 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 167 

decided not to say what he wished, for he con¬ 
tinued :— 

‘^So far as I can see, there are but two theories. 
One is that some person killed Rice for the book 
that is missing.” 

He glanced at Bartley and smiled, adding, 
am a bookman myself in a small way, Mr. 
Bartley, but hardly in your class. I looked up 
what I could find about Aretino and I can see 
where the book that is missing can be worth 
130,000. Still again, the box of money is 
missing. The chief told me you claim that 
it’s hardly likely Kent would take the money, 
or the young man the book.” ’ 

He paused for Bartley’s answer. Instead of 
answering him, Bartley said with a smile:— 

‘What was the question you wished to ask 
me?” 

“Why,” came the half-embarrassed answer, “I 
wanted to know if you had any suspicion of some 
other person beside the two I named, or any facts 
the police do not know.” 

Bartley was silent a long while, his face 
thoughtful. When he replied, he spoke slowly as 
if picking his words. “Mr. Wilcox, that is a 
question which ordinarily I would not care to 
answer, but I will under the circumstances. As 
a rule I work out my cases my own way. I see 


168 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


the position you are in with Kent locked up and 
threatening trouble and a doubt in your mind 
regarding the young man.’’ 

He stopped a moment to light a cigar, then 
continued:— ^‘1 will tell you frankly, I have no 

person under suspicion except those two. I have 
several little theories perhaps, which have little 
to go on, but they point to no particular person. 
In fact, all the evidence is circumstantial, it all 
points to either Kent or the young man. They 
^ may both be innocent, the rather remarkable 
stories of both may be true. They may both be 
untrue.” 

‘‘But,” started the lawyer. 

“But,” smiled Bartley, “they cannot both be 
guilty, you were going to say. That is true. 
Yet it is possible that Kent could have killed my 
friend and Maxson might have taken the money, 
but I don’t know. I have a foolish idea back 
in my mind that perhaps we don’t know anything 
about the real murderer. But so far, I have 
nothing except a few vague theories which do 
not seem to be connected with any person at 
all.” 

Silence fell again, broken only by the faint 
sound of the music from the band and the sound 
of an automobile horn from the street. I could 
see the lawyer was troubled. He may have 
thought Bartley would tell him that he had an 


A FLASH IN THE DARK 


169 


idea of who the murderer might be. I knew 
from what Bartley had said that he knew no 
more than I, who had killed Rice. This was 
what seemed to trouble the lawyer, for he said:— 
thought, Mr. Bartley, you might have some 
clue that the local police had overlooked.’’ 

He shook his head slowly, ^^No, so far they 
know as much as I do. Any one can draw his 
own conclusions from the evidence we have. 
Dunn may be right, the chief may be right. The 
only thing I can say is, that whoever wrote the 
letter saying he had killed Rice, did not tell 
the truth.” 

We stayed a while longer, talking of many 
things, but reaching no further solution. The 
District Attorney advised us he had seen Kent 
when Dunn brought him in. He laughed a bit 
as he told us how angry the man had been and 
how he had demanded a lawyer at once. Kent 
had threatened them with all kinds of lawsuits 
but he never said he did not kill Rice. He had 
told the District Attorney that he must have 
forgotten his cane and had been wrong when he 
said it was at his house. But aside from that, 
he had said nothing new. 

It was long after ten when we left the court 
house and went out to the car. The concert 
was over and only a few young couples were on 
the street. The night, which had been so fine 


170 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


when we left the Hill, had changed. The moon 

was behind dark clouds, the wind was rising and 

it seemed that we were in for another storm. 

Just as we were about to get into the car, who 

should come to our side but Dunn. 

% 

He told us they had found out when the letter 
came into the Post Office and who had brought 
it. It had been picked up by a carrier who had 
the eastern section of the town for his route. 
He brought the letter in about four o’clock. 
There was no doubt about that for the letter was 
stamped five minutes past four. Dunn then 
informed us there were but three mail boxes on 
the carrier’s route and that it should not be 
difficult to pick up the person who mailed it; 
that was, if he wrote another one. 

An automobile went by us at that moment and 
I saw Bartley’s eyes follow it. At the head of 
the street it turned in the direction of the Hill. 
He even gave a low whistle but I could not tell 
why. In a moment he turned back to Dunn and 
we talked together for fifteen or more minutes. 

It was not till we had gotten out of the town 
and were running down the long hill by the 
cemetery, that Bartley turned to say:— 

^^Did you see who was in the car that passed 
while Dunn was talking?” 

I had to confess that I had not and with a 
little laugh he simply said;— 


A PLASH IN THE DARK 


171 


^^Maxson and Mr. Rice’s secretary, Miss Long.” 

He said nothing else and for my part, I asked 
no questions. Why the young woman, whom I 
had taken a liking to, should have been with 
Maxson, I would have given a good deal to know. 
She must have heard that he was suspected of 
taking the money. She did know that he was 
presumed to have been drowned. What they 
had in common bothered me for I could not but 
think of Dunn’s remark, “The girl was in the 
room all day alone. She had a chance to take 
the book.” 

By the time we reached the Hill, I had decided 
to stop thinking about it. Bartley had informed 
me he would drive down around Rice’s place, it 
being just as short a distance to the garage that 
way as any other. I knew no one was at the 
house. The funeral had been held in New York 
that afternoon and the whole household, includ¬ 
ing all the servants, had gone to attend* it. 
Faith and her husband were to return in the 
morning and close the house for the summer. 

We swept down a little hill, then up a steeper 
one. For some reason the electric light-s at this 
part of the resort were all out, though from the 
top of the hill we were on, I could see they were 
all lighted in other sections. I judged there 
must be some wire trouble that had plunged the 
Point into darkness. Not only were the lights 


172 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


all out, but tlie moon was hidden and the clouds 
were heavy. Far off, I could hear the surf 
starting to pound on the shore under the rising 
wind. 

Rice’s estate was the last one on the point of 
land. One side had the bay before it and back 
of the house the river formed the boundary of 
his land. There were no houses within several 
hundred yards of his and, in fact, the nearest 
one was around a little bend in the road. 

Bartley slowed the car down as we swept 
around the bend. Before us, though some little 
distance from the road, loomed the dark form 
of the house, silent and massive. As we swept 
slowly past it, both of us turned to look. 

Suddenly Bartley gave a start and grabbed 
my arm. 

‘Telt,” he cried, his voice eager, ^^did you see 
that?” 

‘What?” I gapped. 

“That light! That house is presumed to be 
deserted, with every one in New York. Yet as I 
looked back, I caught the merest flash of a light. 
It was on the first floor.” 

“A light!” came my startled tone, “What can 
it be?” 

“Yes, a light! It may be the mere flash of an 
electric torch. Some one is in the house. And 
we must find out why.” 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 


GOLD AND ASHES 

I F I had expected Barley would at once stop 
the car, I was mistaken. Instead he drove 
round the bend in the road till the house 
was hidden from our sight. Then he ran to the 
side of the road and stopped the car near a house. 
We jumped from the car in haste, Bartley 
going to the rear of the machine, where he 
fumbled for the torch and gun that he always 
carried there. Finding them, he slipped them 
into his pocket before he spoke. 

‘^Pelt,” came his voice, ‘T don’t know just 
what we may find in the house. I only know 
that no one is presumed to be there. The family 
is at the funeral and all the servants with them. 
But I saw the fiash of a light and there is some¬ 
one there—after something.” 

‘^Maybe it’s Maxson?” I suggested. 

^^No, if it were he, the lights would be on. 
This light I saw was fiashed on only for a second. 
Only the angle we happened to be in at the time, 
enabled me to see it at all. Then again, Maxson 

has no desire to stay alone in the house where 

173 


174 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

his uncle was murdered. He told me that, and I 
doubt if he even has a key.^’ 

We started away from the car. Bartley 
stopped me just before we came to the bend of 
the road and, placing his hand on my shoulder, 
said:— ^Telt, there maybe a lookout placed 
around the house. Lucky for us the lights on 
the street are out and it^s dark. But they may 
flash on at any moment. It’s my suggestion we 
come up to the house by the side and then care¬ 
fully try the windows. 

We stood silent a moment as we came to the 
bend in the road, glancing up and down. There 
was no one in sight. It would have been rather 
difficult to have seen any one, for the night was 
very dark and the trees on each side of the street 
cast dark shadows. Hurriedly we stole across 
the road, entering the gloom of the trees. Be¬ 
fore us stretched the few acres of land that 
formed the estate, grounds broken by shrubs and 

_ I 

little garden spots. The space was dark and 
silent. 

Rather slowly, half walking, half running, we 
reached the little hedge that ran around the 
house. We crouched in its shadows for a mo¬ 
ment, peering at the great form of the dark house 
that loomed up before us. It stood ghostly and 
silent. There did not seem the slightest sign of 
life, though we eagerly watched the windows. 


GOLD AND ASHES 


175 


If Bartley had seen a light while in the car, he 
did not see any sign of one as we crouched be¬ 
neath the hedge. The house seemed empty. We 
stooped lower as an automobile went sweeping 
down the road, its headlight splitting the dark¬ 
ness with a ray of light. 

It was still. After the roar of the passing 
car died away, all I could hear was the sound 
of the wind in the branches of the trees and the 
far-off rumble of the surf on the shore. Not 
only was the house without a sign of life, but we 
had failed to find the slightest trace of any per¬ 
son around the grounds. 

I Bartley’s hand on my arm made me give a 
jump, but as I turned, I dimly saw him motion to 
follow him. Finding a gap in the hedge, we 
slipped through and with a light run, reached 
the side of the house. Against its granite sides, 
we were lost in the shadows and I doubted if any 
one would have been able to see us. Bartley 
led the way around the side of the house, to the 
veranda in the front. Reaching it, he pulled 
himself from the ground to the floor, I climbing 
after him. It was darker even on the veranda 
than it had been on the ground, but in a second I 
dimly made out the great windows. 

Going to the windows, we both carefully 
peered into the room. That is to say we tried to, 
but the rootn was black, with not the slightest 


176 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


suspicion of a light. I could just make out 
Bartley’s shadow and I saw his arms reach up. 
From the faint sound, I knew he was trying the 
window but he could not open it. The catch was 
on. In a moment, he softly went to the massive 
door, tried the knob and discovered that it also 
was locked. Back at my side he paused, and 
whispered:— 

^^We can, of course, get in by the window. Pelt, 
but I have an idea to try something else. Come 
along.” 

He went to the railing of the veranda and 
climbing over dropped to the ground. In a 
second I was at his side, following him around 
the side of the house. He went to the rear, where 
we paused. This time we were under a small 
piazza that went up to the second story. Though 
we had carefully watched the windows along the 
side and in the rear of the house, we saw noth¬ 
ing. 

Here Bartley informed me what he intended 
to do. From the ground, it was possible to reach 
the top of the little stoop which would bring one 
to the second story of the building. There was 
a window which could be forced open. Once in 
the house, it would be an easy matter to reach 
the main floor. He added that the person who 
had shown the light would scarcely expect any 
one to come from the second floor. 


GOLD AND ASHES 


177 


He climbed up the side of the piazza, being 
aided by the trellis work which supported some 
vines. In a moment I stood beside him, twenty 
feet from the ground. It seemed strange to see. 
the rest of the Hill lighted while around the sec¬ 
tion we were in there was a circle of darkness. 
From where I was I could even see the lights of 
a ship far out to sea. 

But I glanced only a moment, for Bartley was 
working on the window. No doubt he was using 
a little piece of steel to slip the catch. In a 
second I heard the little click which told that 
this was done. Softly and slowly he raised the 
window and climbed within. As’I was follow¬ 
ing him, reaching with my feet for the floor, I 
almost slipped on the smooth sides of a bath 
tub. We had entered the house by a bathroom. 

For the merest part of a second Bartley flashed 
the light of his torch on the walls. The bath¬ 
room door was closed. This was about all'I saw 
for darkness fell again. As his hand went out 
for the knob, he whispered:— ‘^We will land 
out in the hall. Pelt, and I want to get to the 
head of the stairs that lead down into the great 
living room on the first floor.’’ 

Slowly and so softly that I did not hear a 
sound, he flung open the door. We stood listen¬ 
ing a while. Not a sound could be heard and 
only the deep blackness of the long hall stretched 


178 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


before us. Groping his way ahead of me, Bart- 
ley crept silently along the passage. I followed 
with my hands brushing the walls for support. 
The hall could not have been very long, yet in the 
darkness it seemed never to end. But at length 
we were peering over the railings of the stair¬ 
way. 

Down below us was the great living room that 
I had first entered the day we heard Rice was 
dead. The stairs led directly into it, with a 
landing halfway down from which the stairs ran 
on two sides to the first fioor. From where we 
were we could, if it had been light, have taken in 
the whole room below. Now all was silent and 
our eyes were unable to pierce the deep gloom. 

We stood there for a while, waiting. What 
Bartley expected to find, I could not tell. I, 
myself, had begun to wonder if he might not have 
been mistaken regarding a light. So far, there 
had been not the slightest sign that any one was* 
in the house. We had seen nothing and it was 
as silent as the proverbial tomb. 

Suddenly, he clutched my arm, whispering, 
^^ListenThere came to my ears a faint sound 
more like the running of a motor than anything 
else. A sound, distant, far away and faint. 
Yet I could hear it plainly. It lasted at least a 
moment, then died away and silence fell again. 

^What was it?’’ I whispered. 


GOLD AND ASHES 


179 


Bartley’s hand was on my arm and he replied 
in a low tone, ‘^Why, it was the elevator. There 
is no doubt of it, and—” Suddenly he paused, 
and I felt his hand increase the pressure on my 
arm. 

The sound had started again. This time it 
seemed more like a faint rumble than anything 
else. It was true that it was faint. Yet in the 
silence it could be heard plainly. This time I had 
no difficulty in knowing that it must be the ele¬ 
vator. And all at once, I realized that we were 
not alone in the house. Some one else was there 
and using the elevator. 

But if it was the elevator, the’ next question, 
of course, was not only who might be running it, 
but to what floor he was going. As we had 
heard it twice, I judged that perhaps some one 
had gone to the upper floors and then returned. 
However, if that were so, he had spent no time 
on any floor but must have descended at once. 

I knew that the wedding gifts had all been 
removed and were no longer in the library. But 
there must have been many thousands of dollars 
worth of old and rare manuscripts there. Could 
the person in the house be some one that was 
trying to steal the manuscripts and books, some¬ 
one who knew the family was away? Or was it 
simply a thief that had happened to come? I 
threw that thought away at once. No thief, un- 


180 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


less he knew the house well, would know about 
the elevator. I remembered how as we stood be¬ 
fore it, when the butler took us first to the main 
floor, that I had been unable even to see a sign 
of a door in the wall. Whoever was running the 
elevator must be some one that knew his way 
about the house. 

The noise had died away again and I whis¬ 
pered these theories to Bartley. His only reply 
was to tell me that he was going to the third 
floor, asking me to keep watch of the floor be¬ 
neath us. In a second he left my side, saying 
he would be back in a short time, and I was 
alone. 

For a while I peered down at the living room, 
as if the very eagerness of my look could pierce 
the darkness. But all was silent. As I waited, 
waiting I knew not for what, the stillness and 
darkness began to affect me. I could almost feel 
the blackness press in on me, heavy sultry dark¬ 
ness that seemed to stifle me. I strained my 
ears for any sound and at times almost held my 
breath as I thought for a second I heard some¬ 
thing. And then all at once it dawned upon me 
that I would cut a sorry figure if I did see any 
one. I was without a gun and there was no 
doubt that whoever was in the house would be 
armed. 

The seconds seemed endless and I began to 


GOLD AND ASHES 


181 


wonder what had happened to Bartley. No 
sound came from the floor above, so I judged 
that he had found nothing. And then all at 
once, when I expected it least, a sound floated 
up from the dark floor beneath me. 

For a moment I felt my hand tremble on the 
railing where it rested. For the sound had come 
from almost directly under me. The sound of a 
person moving across the floor, some one that 
had half stumbled but had not fallen. Some one 
was on the main floor, there was no doubt of 
that. 

My first thought was to go and let Bartley 
know, but I saw in a second that would be ab¬ 
surd. I did not know where he was, only the 
fact he had intended to go to the third floor. 
I did not even know just where the stairs were 
and, if I left my place to find him, the person 
below could get away. 

Then I decided to go slowly and softly down 
the stairs till I reached the landing halfway 
down. That would bring me nearer to the floor 
and also enable me to hear better. So without 
stopping to think if it was a wise thing to do, 
I started slowly down the stairs. 

I picked my way very carefully, taking some 
time to bring each foot down on the next step. 
My hand I pushed ahead of me on the railing for 
support as I felt my way along. At each step I 


182 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS | 

paused, listening to hear if the person below had J 
moved. Strange to say, after the first sound I I 
had heard nothing. Yet I knew some one was 
there, I could feel, it seemed, the presence of the 
person below. Some psychological something 
told me that, though I no longer could hear a 
sound, there was some one below me. 

I had reached the landing. That is to say, 

I had one foot on it, when the most unexpected i 
thing in the world happened. I had been push- ’ 
ing my hand ahead of me on the rail. Its 
smooth surface gave me a certain sense of sup¬ 
port. To my surprise, the rail suddenly ended 
and my hand slipped off into space. I 

' Not expecting the rail to end, and with one ■ 
foot in the air, I lost my balance. I tried to re- ■ 
gain the rail without making a sound. But in 
vain. I clutched at it, missed, lost my balance 1 
and fell with a crash. In the position I had 1 
been in, I not only fell, but fell off the landing, s 
coming down with a crash on the first step. -■ 
Then tumbling and rolling down the eight or 
nine steps, I landed at the bottom with a crash | 
that I thought must have shaken the house. 

Dimly, as I gathered myself together, I 
thanked my lucky stars that I had not broken my 
neck. Yet after all my position was not a very 
enviable one. There was no need to keep silent 
any longer. The crash I made as I came turn* 




GOLD AND ASHES 


183 


bling down the stairs, was enough to give testi¬ 
mony that I was present. Still as I rose to my 
feet, I had the idea that the person in the room 
was more anxious perhaps than I, not to be seen. 

I had risen to my feet, feeling a bit sore for 
it seemed that every part of me had hit some 
section of the stairs as I fell. I stood listening, 
but heard nothing. Hardly knowing what to do, 
I decided to find the stairs and go up again. 
The fall, however, must have confused me for 
though I groped several steps in the direction 
where I judged the stairway must be, I did not 
find it. In a moment, I knew that I was lost in 
the room. Just as much lost as I would have 
been if I were thrown into the heart of China. 

The more steps I took, the more bewildered I 
became. I could not even tell in what direction 
the windows were, and as for the way I was 
headed, I did not know. I stopped several times, 
trying to get the sense of direction, yet failing 
each time. I stood silent the last time for sev¬ 
eral moments, listening for a sound. Not hear¬ 
ing any, I turned completely around and slowly 
started off again. Then suddenly I ran into 
something. 

Mere instinct caused me to throw out my arm 
for protection. It brushed against a man^s coat. 
I felt behind it the heavy, thick-set body and 
heard the startled breathing. The next mo- 


184 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


ment a hand grasped my arm, which I managed 
to throw aside. But in a second more, I was 
clasped by the arms of the man and the fight was 
on. 

It must have been a queer battle. Neither of 
us could see the other nor for that matter make 
out even a form. Rather vainly we struggled 
for a few seconds there in the dark and my idea 
was that each of us was trying far more 
to get away than to injure the other. The per¬ 
son I was struggling with, I could tell, was much 
heavier than myself and of greater strength. 
One of his arms was about my body, the other 
held my arm. Slowly but surely he was pushing 
me back, though I struggled and tried to grasp 
his throat. Once my hand crept over his col¬ 
lar to the fiesh of his neck, only to be thrown 
aside. At last by a burst of strength, I managed 
to break away from his grip and then hit out 
with my fist. My hand struck somewhere 
around his chest. As it brushed his coat, some¬ 
thing seemed to ring with a little clinking sound 
and in pulling away my hand tore the pocket of 
his coat. 

Suddenly I sensed that he was drawing a gun 
from his pocket. I had little chance against his 
strength—against a gun I had none at all. I 
had sense enough to give a loud cry which I 
thought might bring Bartley from the floor 


GOLD AND ASHES 


185 


above. Next I quickly sprung aside and softly 
dropped to the floor. On my hands and knees 
I started to crawl as far away from where I had 
been as I could. 

Before I had gone several feet, there came the 
sharp bark of the gun and a spit of flame broke 
the darkness. It had been aimed at the place 
where I had stood a second before. Another 
shot rang out, as I throwing aside all desire for 
silence, crept across the floor as fast as I could. 
I bumped into a great divan and crawled around, 
placing it between me and the gun. 

I could hear the man walking across the floor 
and it seemed he was going away from me. Just 
as I realized he was working toward the win¬ 
dows, I heard a slight sound on the stairs above 
and knew that Bartley was coming. No doubt 
he had heard the report of the gun and was com¬ 
ing as silently as he could. The next second 
there came the sound of breaking glass and of 
a window being raised. Then as if throwing 
aside all desire for secrecy, I heard Bartley run¬ 
ning down the steps. In a second the shaft of 
his light was piercing the darkness and playing 
over the room. 

In an anxious tone, he called, ‘Telt, where are 
you?” 

I rose to my feet and answered. Evidently he 
knew where the button of the lights was, for the 


186 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

next second the room was flooded with light. 
Coming after the dense darkness, it caused me 
to blink for a while. 

When I became accustomed to the brightness, 
I found Bartley gazing at me with a rather be¬ 
wildered expression on his face. ^What under 
heavens happened to you?’’ he asked. 

In a few words I told him how I had slipped 
on the stairs, falling to the bottom, and of my 
struggle in the room. He nodded in an approv¬ 
ing way as I told him how I had crept away on 
the floor as soon as I realized the man had a gun. 
He listened without a word to my short story, 
then went over to the window. 

The window was half open and the glass was 
broken above the lock. Bits of glass were lying 
on the heavy rug. The sound I heard had been 
the man opening the window, evidently break¬ 
ing the glass in his haste. I knew the window 
had been locked when we tried it from the ver¬ 
anda. 

Going back to the center of the room, Bartley 
gazed at me in a curious way, suddenly say¬ 
ing 

^What’s the matter with your coat?” 

I glanced down at it. To my surprise it was 
white in spots as if the person I had struggled 
with had something on his hands. Against the 
front of my coat was a splotch of white and also, 


GOLD AND ASHES 


187 


Bartley said, on my back and shoulder. I 
touched the place with my fingers and looked at 
it. It seemed to be nothing but ashes and I said 
as much. 

‘‘Ashes?” said Bartley in a doubting tone. He 
came and examined the coat, looking at the spots 
upon it. He even scraped some of the dirt off. 
His voice was curious as he replied, “You are 
right. Pelt, it is ashes. I wonder—” and then 
suddenly he paused and stooped down to the 
floor. 

As he rose he simply extended his hand to me, 
saying, “These were at your feet.” 

I looked, my eyes growing big with wonder. 
For there in his open palm, looking rather small, 
yet bright, were three fifty-dollar gold pieces. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


WE MEET WITH SEVERAL SURPRISES 

I T was with an exclamation of surprise that 
I gazed at the gold pieces lying in Bartley’s 
extended palm. Then, as if expecting to 
see the floor covered with them, I looked at the 
rug. But there were no more to be seen. Bart¬ 
ley jingled them in his hand for a while, then 
placed them in his pocket. 

Suddenly I remembered the little sound I 
heard when my hand had caught on the pocket of 
the man’s coat. I told Bartley, who listened 
eagerly. When I finished, he said:— 

^^That jingle must have been money that he 
had in his pocket. You say that your hand 
caught in the pocket of the coat and you are 
sure that you tore it in getting away. No doubt 
that caused these three pieces of gold to fall to 
the floor.” 

^‘But,” I answered, ‘fit means then that the 
person who stole the box of money was the same 
person that I struggled with.” 

“It looks so. Who else would have had fifty - 
dollar g old pieces with him under such circum¬ 
stances? I would say perhaps the box of money 

188 


SEVERAL SURPRISES MET WITH 189 


is hidden somewhere in the house. The person, 
knowing the family was away, thought this was 
a good time to get it. I think the ashes will aid 
us in locating the box.’’ 

I glanced at the white places on my coat, 
wondering how a few ashes could give any infor¬ 
mation regarding the hiding place of the missing 
box. I said as much. He smiled, replying:— 
“Think it over. Pelt. Here it is the middle of 
the summer. The days are warm, very hot in 
fact. Your man must have had ashes on his 
hands and coat. Of course he had to be where 
they were to get them. Now what does that tell 
you?” ^ 

“Why,” I replied, “from what you say he must 
have been in the cellar.” 

“Certainly! And that’s where we are going.” 

Leaving the electric lights on in the room, he 
led the way to a door and passed into a hallway. 
At the end of the hall, he opened another door. 
There was a pair of stairs which we went down, 
coming out in a dining room. The room was 
really in the basement and I judged was the ser¬ 
vants’ dining room. Pushing through it, we 
came into a kitchen, where we did not stop. 
He opened another door and turned on the light. 

Before us stretched the cellar. It was a long 
room with a concrete floor. As we went down 
its length I could see. barrels and boxes of all 


190 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


kinds. It seemed to be used far more as a store 
room than anything else. If Bartley was look¬ 
ing for a pile of ashes, he did not find one. In 
fact there was but little coal in the coal bin and 
no sign of ashes at all. 

After discovering this, he paused for a mo¬ 
ment, his brow thoughtful. Across from us was 
a large furnace the door of the pit half open. 
As his eyes fell on it he gave a little laugh and 
went over to its side. Bending down he glanced 
carefully at the floor, then called to me. 

‘We won’t have to go any further,” he said. 
“Look at the floor, some one has been here.” 

Before the open door of the furnace I could 
see traces of ashes—gray against the clean floor 
of the cellar. It looked as if some one had tried 
to sweep them up, for I could see the marks of 
a broom. In fact leaning against the side of the 
furnace was a broom, as if it had just been 
placed there. 

Bartley rose and looked around the cellar. 
He found a long poker, got on his knees and 
poked in the ash pit with a long piece of iron. 
Then suddenly throwing the poker down, he 
plunged his hand into the pit and, after fumbling 
around for a moment came out with something. 
It was covered with ashes, gray and dusty, but 
as he rose to his feet with a little smile on his 
lips I saw that it was a mahogany box. 


SEVERAL SURPRISES MET WITH 191 


He had found the box of money, there was no 
doubt of that. 

He took it over to a bench that was under a 
light. I followed him. Flinging open the lid 
we peered eagerly within. There, before our 
eyes, were rows of shining gold pieces. It 
needed only a look to tell that some of them had 
been taken, for while the bottom rows were in 
firm ranks, in the top of the box the money was 
/ loose and scattered. We both looked for a sec¬ 
ond, then he turned. 

^^Well,” he drawled, ^^here is the missing box. 
Some of the money is gone, about a third of it, I 
would say.” ' 

There was no doubt he was right. Yet I could 
not help but wonder why the box had been hid¬ 
den in such a strange place. I voiced my 
thought. He smiled as he replied:— “It was 
a very clever place to hide it. If you had never 
tumbled down those stairs, I doubt if we would 
ever have thought of looking there for it. Think 
of it! Where could you find a better place? 
This furnace is used only in the late fall, never 
in the summer. The person who took the box 
thought that under the ashes in the pit, it would 
be secure. No one would think of looking for it 
there, and the pit would probably not be cleaned 
until fall. It was a safe place to hide the box 
of money.” 


192 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

He thrust his hands into the box, picking up 
some of the gold and letting it fall through his 
fingers. It fell with a little clinking sound 
pleasant to hear. He turned to me:— 

^^All the money is not here. I judge that man 
took what he wished, placing it in his pocket. 
You heard it jingle as you hit him. No doubt 
he figured that it was safe enough in the ashes 
and he could get it at any time.” 

“Do you think,” I ventured, “it might have 
been Maxson?” 

Instead of answering he turned and looked at 
the box, bending over as if to count the money. 
When he raised up he replied:— 

“That lead medal he said he placed in here, 
is not in the box. As for Maxson, I don’t know. 
You say the man seemed heavier than yourself 
and stronger. Maxson is not as heavy as you 
and by no means as strong. Of course the dark¬ 
ness and the fact that you were struggling may 
have caused you to be mistaken regarding the 
person’s weight and strength.” 

This was true.* I realized that the excite¬ 
ment of the struggle and my thoughts at the time 
could have caused me to be mistaken regarding 
the person I was fighting with. Still I was 
pretty sure the man had been heavier than my¬ 
self, and I knew by the pressure of his arms that 
he was strong. If that was so, it did not seem 


SEVERAL SURPRISES MET WITH 193 


possible it could have been the young man. Yet, 
of course, I did not know. I said so. 

Bartley listened, agreeing with me. He was 
feeling rather pleased over finding the money 
and smiled several times as he glanced at the 
box. When I had finished talking, he simply 
said that we might as well go back to the hotel. 
Taking the box under his arm, he went from the 
cellar and I followed him up-stairs. We reached 
the living room just in time to hear a terrific 
pounding on the door. 

I looked at him in amazement and even his 
eyes were filled with surprise. Who could be at 
the door? The pounding was incessant, as if 
the person on the veranda was determined to get 
in. I realized that the lights being on would lead 
any one to think the house was occupied. So 
after Bartley gave me a glance, I went into the 
big hall and opened the door. There as I flung 
it open, stood a policeman and Maxson. 

The policeman gave me just a look and half 
yelled, “What are youse doing in this house 
Bartley^s voice answered from behind me and 
in a moment we were all in the living room. 

The young man’s face was a study, for we 
must have been the last persons that he expected 
to see. His eyes kept coming back to us and 
then suddenly they grew big. His glance had 
fallen on the box which Bartley still held under 


194 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


his arm. He said, nothing, however, letting 
the policeman and Bartley do all the talking. 

The officer told us that he had been given or¬ 
ders to keep his eyes on the house as every one 
was away. As he came round the bend of the 
road covering his beat, he had noticed that the 
main floor was lighted. He started to run to¬ 
ward the house and in front of it, he came upon 
Maxson who was standing before the door, look¬ 
ing at the house. The young man had told him 
w^ho he was and together they had come to the 
door. 

It struck me rather odd that Maxson should 
have been in front of the house at that time. 
More so, when I remembered that the missing 
gold pieces had just been found and Bartley had 
suggested that whoever hid them knew the fur¬ 
nace was not in use in the summer. But he told 
us a rather feasible story and did not seem to be 
hiding anything. 

He had been in town as we knew. The chief, 
he said, had kept him a long while questioning 
him. Anally letting him go on promise to report 
the next day. It was late then. He had dinner 
and then decided to wait for the 9: 45 train from 
New York. He had the idea some of the family 
might return. At the station the only person 
he knew that came off the train was the secre¬ 
tary. He spoke to her, startling her because she 


SEVERAL SURPRISES MET WITH 195 


thought he had been drowned. Then they rode 
down to the Hill in the little car his uncle had 
given her. She wished to take him to his hotel 
but it was late and he had insisted that she leave 
him when she reached her own. As we knew, 
the hotel was on the river bank about a mile 
from the Hill. He had walked down after leav¬ 
ing her, coming round by the house. As he came 
in sight of it, he saw the lights and wondered 
what they could mean. Just as he reached the 
front of the house and stood trying to make up 
his mind what to do, the policeman had come 
running up. 

It seemed a perfectly logical story and I stole 
a glance at Bartley to discover how he was tak¬ 
ing it. His fine face was expressionless and I 
could not tell. But I noticed that though the 
youth stole several glances at the box, Bartley 
said nothing about our finding it. 

The policeman had not seen any person run¬ 
ning away from the house, nor had he noticed 
any one about the house in the times he had 
passed by on his beat. Maxson insisted that he 
saw nothing when he came down the road. 
Whoever the person was that had gotten out of 
the window, he must have been far away by 
this time. 

There was little else that we could do until 
morning, and we left after telling the policeman 


196 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


to call up the town and have another man guard 
the house during the night. Bartley carried the 
box under his arm but he said nothing to either 
the boy or the officer of finding it. 

The street lights fiashed on just as we reached 
the road. The night was cool and the wind had 
increased. Clouds hid the face of the moon and 
only once in a while could one see a star. We 
walked slowly, Bartley and I side by side, Max- 
son stumbling along a few feet behind us. 
Reaching the car we all climbed in. For a while 
nothing was said. I was running over the 
events of the night, trying to find some solution 
for them all, when Maxson suddenly spoke. 

His voice trembled a little and was rather low 
as he said: ^^Mr. Bartley, I—I—have been 
doing a bit of thinking all day. I see that—I— 
I’ve been a good deal of a fool, rather a bother. 
Uncle was far better to me than I deserved. I 
want to ask you how I can get out of the mess 
I am in.” He paused, then added:— ^Wou 
don’t know that I—I—wrote some letters to 
Faith before she was married.” 

^^Letters?” came Bartley’s quick question. 

Under the electric light that we were passing, 
I saw the boy’s head droop and his voice was 
apologizing and low as he answered, ‘Wes, sir, 
some letters, trying to scare her, saying they 
should not marry. They were not signed.” 


SEVERAL SURPRISES MET WITH 197 


Bartley had been right when he said the let¬ 
ters had been written by some one in the house. 
Now the young man confessed that he had writ¬ 
ten them and from his tone seemed to be very 
much ashamed. Then I remembered Bartley^s 
statement that people with his nervous, neurotic 
outlook on life were often cured by a sudden 
sho’ck. I half grinned at the thought. He had 
gotten a shock all right. 

To my surprise, Bartley did not mention the 
letters in his conversation with the young man. 
He talked to him about as a father would to a 
foolish son, telling him how absurd he had acted 
and yet not assuming that he had done anything 
criminal. His advice to the youth was for him 
to go to his cousin on her return and tell her 
how foolish he had acted and endeavor in the 
future to act differently. 

We soon reached the hotel and Bartley gave 
the box to the clerk to keep in the safe. Then 
we took the elevator to our rooms. The door 
closed, Bartley dropped into a chair with a sigh. 

I tried to get him to talk but he put me off 
with short answers. For a while he ran 
through several books that he took from the 
table but at length dropped them on the floor by 
the chair. He was tired and, it seemed to me, 
perplexed. It was not till I was just ready for 
bed that I discovered the last to be true. 


198 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


I had asked him if he was reaching a solution 
of the crime. At my question he looked at me, 
half in disgust, half in amusement. It was with 
a weary tone hhat he replied:—• 

^^For the third time. Pelt, allow me to say, 
that you know all that has taken place. You 
know the facts, you have a brain.” 

He rose from his chair and wearily started to 
disrobe. Half undressed, he sank back in a 
chair and lighted a cigarette. His glance went 
over me and perhaps he saw I had been a trifle 
hurt at his answer. A little smile came back to 
his lips, as he said:— 

‘^Excuse me, Pelt, I am tired and feel deeply 
the death of my old friend.” 

He paused, then went on, ^Wou ask, have I 
reached a solution? I am no nearer one than at 
the beginning. I have looked the evidence all 
through and I am not satisfied. There is some¬ 
thing we do not know. Some fact, maybe slight, 
yet the keystone of the whole thing. Till I find 
it, I cannot hope to reach a solution.” 

He threw his cigarette aside and rose, stand¬ 
ing silent a second. Then he said, ^^The crime 
looks simple. I have an idea it is very simple. 
But there is something we do not know, some 
fact to be discovered.” 

He smiled again, adding, “Maybe it will come 
to you in your dreams.” 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 


An unexpected visitor 

I HAD a very late breakfast the next morn¬ 
ing, in fact being the last one in the dining 
room. As I waited for my order, I glanced 
through the morning papers. Blazoned in great 
headlines across the first page was the story of 
Maxson^s escapade. The stories told of his at¬ 
tempt to have it appear that he had been 
drowned and how Bartley had discovered him. 
The young man^s story was played up in length 
and I could see that the papers had grave doubt 
if he had told the truth. Throwing the papers 
aside for my breakfast, I smiled as I wondered 
what the young man would think when he saw 
how they had featured him. 

Breakfast over I went to the room. I had ex¬ 
pected to find Bartley there, instead there was a 
note saying that he was in town and would see 
me at lunch. For a while I read the rest of the 
papers and then decided to go down to the bath¬ 
ing beach for a swim. 

The beach was fairly crowded when I got 
there. Little children were playing in the sand, 
building sand forts or digging great holes. The 

199 


200 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


raft sixty feet out in the water was crowded with 
young people, while others were simply sunning 
themselves on the sand. 

I fooled around in the water for perhaps 
twenty minutes, then came out, throwing myself 
down on the sand to dry in the sun. For a while 
I watched a ship that seemed to be simply stay¬ 
ing near the Long Island shore miles away. I 
smiled at my fancy of how, in the days long past, 
the pirates crept into the sound, smiling again 
as I thought of our modern ^^hootch ships’^ that 
were doing the same thing. Suddenly I came to 
attention as my name was called. 

Glancing up I saw Hall, one of the detectives 
that was in the house the night Rice was killed. 
I had only spoken to him twice and had sup¬ 
posed he had gone back to Providence. But 
after he dropped on the sand by my side, I dis¬ 
covered that he was working on another case 
which had kept him at the Hill. 

Naturally enough our conversation drifted 
back to the night of the crime and he retold the 
story which I already had heard. There was 
nothing new in his recital. We both expressed 
our wonder as to who could have committed the 
murder. In the end, we both agreed that in so 
much as the murderer simply had to close the 
door behind him, which would lock because of 
the spring, he must have come down in the ele- 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 201 


vator. This caused Hall to say that the murder 
must have been committed before twelve because 
the elevator did not run all night. Then we 
came to the conclusion that the evidence seemed 
to fix the crime on either Kent or Maxson. 

After talking back and forth for a while, Hall 
rose and left me. I watched his heavy figure go 
down the beach. He had a strange walk, more 
of a slouch than anything else, with one shoulder 
standing high above the other. As I watched 
him, I wondered how many detectives had the 
misfortune to have their clients killed while they 
were presumed to be looking after them. 

It was after one when I got back to my room, 
having had dinner down by the shore. I did not 
expect to see Bartley when I entered the room, 
and he was not there. But about ten minutes 
after I got in, the door opened and he entered. 

Something must have pleased him for he was 
in a rare humor. He smiled at me, stopping by 
my chair to pat my shoulder before he dropped 
down on the edge of the bed. Then looking at 
me, he suddenly laughed. 

^Well, Pelt,’’ he said, ^^you should have been 
along with me this morning.” 

^What happened?” I asked, at once interested. 

‘‘Well,” he drawled out, smiling, “the first 
thing which happened was that Dunn picked up 
the chap w^ho wrote the letters to the chief.” 


202 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


^^He did,” came my reply, ^^that was quick 
work.” 

He nodded, ^Wes it was. They had men watch¬ 
ing the letter boxes and every letter that was 
dropped in was taken and examined at once. 
They found this man without any trouble. 
Got him, in fact, three minutes after he had 
dropped another letter in the mail box.” 

He paused, while I waited for him to con¬ 
tinue. Before he did, he rose from the bed and, 
going to a cigar box, took a cigar and lighted it. 
Dropping into a chair, he suddenly laughed 
again. 

^Wes, they got him and took him to the sta¬ 
tion. Before the chief and myself, he not only 
admitted he wrote the letters but what is more, 
said very calmly that he had killed Rice.” 

In astonishment I gave a gasp. It seemed the 
case was over. Bartley chuckled at my blank 
expression but went on:— ^Wes, he even got 
angry when I doubted his whole story. And 
there was one queer thing in it.” 

^What was that?” came my question. 

^Well, it seems that this man, whose name is 
Johns, is a carpenter. He worked at Rice^s 
house this spring building bookcases into the 
library. So you see he knew the house, knew 
how the elevator works and about the library 
on the top floor. We tried to trip him but he 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 203 


stuck to his story. It was a simple enough yam 
at the best.’’ 

He paused to take a fresh cigar, the other hav¬ 
ing gone out, then continued:— “He claims 
that he came in just after the men went out of the 
house, and went to the top floor. He said he saw 
no one on his way in or out. There he killed 
Rice. He killed him because God had told him 
to do it.” 

“God told him to do it?” I asked in amazement. 

Bartley half smiled, “That is what he said. 
There is no doubt that the man is not right. He 
is a weak-minded person of the religiously fa¬ 
natical type. The chief says that he is well 
known in town. His story has big flaws in it. 
If he w^ent up right after the men left, then he 
would have run into Kent. Then again, there 
was some one in the hall at the time the men 
went out and for some time after. The two de¬ 
tectives saw Kent go up, they did not see any one 
else. His story seemed logical at flrst, but there 
are holes in it and the man is not mentally 
right.” 

“Then you don’t think he killed Rice?” I 
asked. 

He shook his head, “No, I don’t. He is pretty 
meager regarding details and how the tables 
with the gifts were placed. He denied taking 
anything, and the murderer must have taken 


204 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


either the book or the money, maybe both. All 
he knew he could have gotten very easily from 
the papers and his previous working in the 
house. In fact the man is not right, and I don’t 
believe he had any more to do with the death of 
Kice than I had.” 

At that moment the telephone rang and going 
over to the desk, Bartley picked up the receiver, 
I heard his ‘^Hello chief,” then came a silence 
which was broken by his laughing and saying, 
^Ht’s what I expected.” They talked a few mo¬ 
ments longer, then he placed the receiver back on 
the hook and turned toward me. 

‘Well, Pelt,” he grinned, “the chief says that 
Johns’ wife and sister insists that he did not 
leave the house on the night of the murder. In 
fact, they went to bed at just twelve. That 
finishes his story of committing the crime.” 

“But why under heaven,” I asked, “should 
any one confess to a crime he did not com¬ 
mit?” 

“Oh, that happens often. Seeking notoriety, 
perhaps. Often ’tis that inferiority complex I 
spoke of. The desire to be in the limelight. 
This man also is a religious fanatic. He spoke 
of how the newspapers passed by those who 
served the Lord. Then again he is not right 
mentally, there is no doubt of that. I had an 
idea, when the chief showed us the letter, that it 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 205 


came from a type of that sort. There is no 
doubt he did not commit the murder, though 
they will have to hold him a while, I think, any¬ 
way—” 

Before he could finish, there came a knock on 
the door. I rose to open it but Bartley called 
out “Come inThe door opened and who 
should came walking into the room but James 
Kent. 

I gazed at him in astonishment. I had the idea 
he was still held in the jail at Westerly. Evi¬ 
dently his lawyers had managed to get him out 
on bail. I could see that Bartley was also sur¬ 
prised, though he managed to hide it well. 

Kent said nothing till he had closed the door, 
then turned and faced us. Again I was struck 
by his great strength, and, though his face was 
not a pleasant one, yet it had power. The last 
time I saw him he had been very angry, but he 
was calm enough now. In fact, when he started 
to speak I got the impression he was trying to 
act as natural as he could. His face did flush 
for a second as we looked at him but the flush 
died away at once. 

“Mr. Bartley,” he said in a rather low voice, 
“no doubt you are a bit surprised to see me. I 
just got of that jail a few moments ago,” and 
an angry flash came into his eyes at the recol¬ 
lection. 


206 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Bartley said nothing, waiting for the man to 
go on. I saw Kent clench his fists as he con¬ 
tinued :— 

^‘My lawyers fixed up the bail, and I came 
down here fast as I could to see you. I want 
you to get me out of this fix.’^ 

Bartley^s eyes wore a curious expression as 
they met those of Kent. I could tell he was 
puzzled by this new turn and hardly knew what 
to say. But he kept silent, waiting to hear more 
fully what the man wished. 

‘Wou see,’’ Kent went on, seem to be in a 
bad mess. I know no more about how Rice was 
killed than you do.” He paused, then burst out 
in rage, will make some one pay for this.” 

Though he had been calm enough when he en¬ 
tered the room, there was no doubt he was get¬ 
ting angry. His face flushed red and his black 
eyes snapped warmly. The more I looked at 
him, the more I wondered just why he had come 
to see Bartley. There was no doubt that the man 
was suspected of the crime and I would have 
thought Bartley should have been the last person 
he would wish to see. Again I wondered how he 
had gotten out of jail so easily. 

Bartley eyed him carefully, then said 
soberly:— take it you are not making a 
friendly call, just to be sociable, say. What is 
it you expect me to do?” 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 207 


The broker dropped into a chair and gazed at 
the floor before replying. Then picking each 
word as if he wished to be careful of what he 
said, he raised his eyes and spoke:— 

^‘Mr. Bartley,’’ he said, am wise enough to 
know I am in a bad position. I expect to get 
out of it but there will be talk.” He paused, 
then said suddenly, will give you ten thou¬ 
sand dollars to drop everything and simply look 
after my interests.” 

Bartley’s face flushed red and an angry look 
came into his eyes. I wondered if Kent was try¬ 
ing to bribe him. It looked so from the offer he 
had made. Then I wondered just why he 
should, for so far as I knew Bartley was leaving 
Kent to the local detective and the chief. Bart¬ 
ley’s tone was rather cool when he replied:— 
^^Kent, that is a rather queer offer for you 
to make. I don’t intend to drop anything till I 
discover who killed my friend Rice.” 

The tone had been crisp and short and I saw 
Kent move a bit nervously under it. But he 
looked at Bartley and spoke:— 

don’t mean it that way, Mr. Bartley. I 
mean simply this. You see it’s just as much to 
my interest now to discover who killed Rice as 
any one’s. Those darned police officials have 
the idea I did. I admit my story about the cane 
looks bad. But my memory is darned poor, and 


208 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


I did think the cane was home. The thing will 
be solved some day but I want to be cleared as 
soon as I can be. I donT like the attitude the 
papers have taken. I want the case ended, the 
murderer caught. That is what I meant by ask¬ 
ing you to do what you could for me.’’ 

While he was talking, I studied him. He 
seemed earnest enough and I wondered if he 
was not speaking the truth. It was to his in¬ 
terest, above any one else’s, to have the crime 
cleared up. Till we were able to prove who 
killed Kice, Kent would be under suspicion. 
Yet there he sat, playing the part of an injured 
man. If he was guilty, then I could understand 
why he was called the nerviest man on the street. 

Bartley did not have very much to say in re¬ 
sponse, though he told him he would naturally 
be pleased if the crime was soon solved. This 
was not much of an answer, but it seemed to suit 
Kent, who left us a few moments later. 

As the door closed I turned and looked at 
Bartley. It had been an unexpected visit and 
I was curious to know what he might think. 
His eyes met mine but the look in them was pecu¬ 
liar. After a moment he rose to his feet and 
walked several times up and down the room. I 
saw him once slowly shake his head and I knew 
he was trying to solve some problem that had 
come into his mind. At length he turned to me. 


AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 209 

‘Telt, either Kent is a much injured man or 
else he is a nervier man than I thought. I am 
not sure whether he is trying to bribe me, think¬ 
ing I would drop the case, or if he indeed told 
the truth. There are several things make me 
think that perhaps he is guilty. Then again 
there are several things that make me sure he is 
not.” 

He paused, gave a little laugh and went on, 
‘^One thing is sure, Kent must have pulled some 
powerful wires to have gotten out of jail. It’s 
true there has been no charge of murder placed 
against him but Dunn wished one^ The fact he 
is out, shows some one with power has been ap¬ 
proached.” 

He went to the window, glanced out for a mo¬ 
ment, then pulled his watch from his pocket and 
glanced at it. Seeing the time he gave a sudden 
start, saying, ^Uome on. Pelt, we have to go and 
see Mr. Rice’s daughter. She and her husband 
got back this morning.” 

All of the time he was driving to the house, I 
was wondering what new facts could be secured. 
I doubted if the girl and her husband knew any¬ 
thing but there must be some reason for our go¬ 
ing to see them. It was not till we had stopped 
before the door that Bartley spoke. Then it 
was to say that he still was of the opinion we 
had overlooked some little fact which must be 


210 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

discovered before we could hope to solve the 
crime. 

The butler let us in and Bartley told him to 
ask the young couple to come to the library. He 
bowed and hurried away while we went to the 
elevator and in a moment were before the library 
door. It was open and I saw that the wedding 
presents had been removed from the room. The 
hole in the door that had been made in order to 
enter the room, was still there—a ragged gash 
in the mahogany. 

We stood a moment by the door and I saw 
Bartley reach down and press the little spring in 
the lock. Suddenly he gave an exclamation and 
bent down to the latch. He looked at it a sec¬ 
ond, fingering the spring. On his face was a 
curious expression. Then he straightened and 
tried the knob, turning to me. 

^^This is queer,” he said. ^That spring latch 
seems to be broken.” 

I gave a start, wondering how long it had 
been in that condition. I, myself, had pointed 
out the morning of the crime that it had not been 
necessary to lock the door. All the murderer 
needed to have done, was to shut the door and 
the spring latch would lock. That had ex¬ 
plained how the person committing the crime 
had been able to leave the key inside the room. 
But I started when I remembered that, so far as 



AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 211 


I knew, none of us had tried the spring at all. 
Seeing it, I had simply taken for granted that it 
would lock the door. 

I said as much to Bartley, who listened with 
a rather glum look on his face. When I finished 
he replied:— ‘^That is true. Pelt. We built up 
our theories around the fact that the murderer 
simply closed the door and the spring lock 
locked it. That explained the key being inside. 
It gave the only logical escape from the room 
for I do not think the murderer got out by the 
window and walked the ledge. That^s not rea¬ 
sonable. But the spring is broken. If it was 
that way the morning of the murder, then we are 
up against it. It will mean coming back to the 
theory that the murderer got out some other way 
than through the door. He could not have shut 
the door, locked it and left the key inside.” 

At this point the elevator opened and the but¬ 
ler came toward us. He said the young people 
would be up in a moment. Bartley paid no at¬ 
tention to this, asking at once:— 

^Williams, the spring latch in this door is 
broken. Do you know anything about it?” 

The old man gave a look at the door, as if 
thinking the question was of little importance. 
But his answer startled us both, for he said:— 
^Why yes, Mr. Bartley, Mr. Rice told me two 
weeks ago the spring was broken and we had a 


212 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


man who was to fix it only he never came. I 
will have to attend to it.” 

Bartley^s eyes had grown large while the butler 
was speaking. His crisp voice snapped out:— 
^Wou mean to tell me that lock has been out of 
order for two weeks?” 

As if astonished that he could be interested in 
so slight a matter, the butler replied:— 

“Yes, sir, it has been out of order for two 
weeks. You had better use the key to lock the 
door.” 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 

T he butler^s reply had been so startling 
that neither of us said a word. Instead 
there came a silence in which I stared at 
the lock as if I expected it might suddenly speak. 
The whole case seemed to have come up against 
a stone wall. If the spring latch had been out 
of order for two weeks before the murder, then 
the door had been locked with the key. That 
being so, the murderer could not have come out 
by the door. The key had been inside and the 
room must have been left in some other way. 
The windows seemed the only solution. Sud¬ 
denly it dawned upon me that the butler’s re¬ 
mark about the latch seemed to clear both Kent 
and Maxson. They both had left the room and 
had come down to the main floor by the elevator. 
They could not have done that, if the door had 
been locked with the key inside. And the 
key had been inside there was no doubt of 
that. 

Suddenly Bartley gave a long low whistle. I 
looked at him in time to see a sudden expression 
of wonder pass over his face. He glanced at the 

213 


214 THE SHADOW. ON. THE GLASS 

door—and smiled. I would have given a good 
deal to know what caused the whistle and the 
smile. But whatever it was, I did not know nor 
did I find out then, for the young woman and her 
husband were coming from the elevator. 

As she came to the open door, I saw her give 
a shudder as there swept over her the recollection 
of the morning when her father was found dead. 
She was not in mourning, though her dress was 
of sober color. Both she and her husband 
greeted us warmly, notwithstanding there was 
little doubt they wondered why Bartley had 
insisted on seeing them in the library. 

He led us all into the little room where the 
body had been found. At his request, the butler 
brought some chairs and we seated ourselves. 
Bartley went over and stood beside the desk 
- while we all glanced eagerly at him. His look 
rather puzzled me. I could see that something 
had caused a little trace of excitement to appear 
in his eyes. That in itself was enough to make 
me wonder for Bartley as a rule never lost his 
poise. 

He glanced us all over, his eyes resting with 
a smile upon the girl who sat with one hand in 
that of her husband. When he spoke, his words 
were addressed to her. 

‘^Mrs. Camp,’^ he said, wanted to ask you 
some questions in this room. I brought you up 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 215 


here because I thought the sight of the place 
where your father was found, might bring back 
some fact to you that you have overlooked/^ 

‘^But, Mr. Bartley,’^ came her low voice, ^^I 
told you all I knew.’’ 

He smiled at her, ^^I know that. Faith. But 
it’s my idea that there is something we have 
overlooked, some little fact that we must have 
before we can reach any solution. That’s why 
I brought you here, to ask you once more to go 
through the story of the finding of your father’s 
body.” 

The girl looked very sober as she caught the 
import of his words and I saw her brow knit as 
she tried to recall all that had taken place. The 
story was the same as we had heard. For some 
reason she had been alarmed when the butler 
could not find her father and had insisted that 
the door be broken in. Some one had said they- 
might get a locksmith but she i,nsisted that the 
detectives break through the woodwork. An 
ax was found and Hall chopped a hole in the 
door. Then they went to the little room and 
found her father. Her voice broke when she 
came to this part of the story and her husband 
put his arm around her. 

“Faith,” Bartley broke in, “you told me you 
never touched anything on the fioor. Are you 
sure?” 


216 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Her ejes went around the room for a moment 
and she simply nodded, then said, ^^No, I did 
not.” 

Bartley took a piece of paper from his pocket, 
also a pencil and drew a chair up by the desk. 
Then he turned to the girl. 

‘^Faith, I am going to try a little test. It^s 
one of the psychological tests used across the 
sea. As I call off different things, I want you to 
give me the first word that flashes into your 
mind. Don’t try and pick a word, just give the 
first one that comes, no matter how foolish it 
is.” 

I could see the girl did not understand why 
he should request this. I, myself, understood. 
I knew that in criminal circles abroad and even 
once in a while in this country, the word associa¬ 
tion test was used. It was a psychological test 
to get the reaction of a person to certain things. 
In a long list of words, certain words were put 
in and from the length of time that the person 
took to reply, it was decided whether he were 
hiding anything. I doubted, however, if Bart¬ 
ley thought the girl was keeping anything back. 
Instead, I was sure he thought she had forgotten 
something. 

He started to read off his list of words, writing 
down the word she gave in reply. I noticed at 
once, he was only naming certain objects in the 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 217 


room—objects wbicb had been there the morning 
of the discovery of the crime. Her replies came 
quick enough, yet seemed to be of little value. 
' The first object mentioned was ^floor’ and her 
answer wns Tather.’ One could see that there 
flashed into her mind the picture of her father 
dead on the floor of the room. When he came to 
S indow’ she replied ‘open,’ showing that she had 
remembered the open window. 

In like manner he went down a long list of 
words, mentioning the various objects that had 
been in the room. Evidently he had gained noth¬ 
ing for he started to fold the paper and place it 
in his pocket, when his eyes fell on some object. 
As if he had forgotten it, he wrote a word on 
his list and said ‘camera.’ Like a flash, she 
replied ‘floor.’ 

At her reply, Bartley looked at her curiously. 
“Why,” he asked, “did you say floor when I 
mentioned the word ‘camera’?” 

“Why, because it was the first one that came 
into my mind. I . . . .” 

Suddenly I saw her eyes grow big as she 
turned and looked first at Bartley, then at the 
camera standing near her. It was a large 
camera, standing on a tripod and used, we knew, 
to take pictures of various books. It had been 
covered by the draperies the morning we came 
into the room, the draperies that had been pulled 


218 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


down in the struggle and had fallen over the 
camera. 

‘What do you remember?” came Bartley’s 
voice. 

“Why,” she said, “it’s foolish, but I did touch 
something that morning.” 

“You did!” came the excited voice of Bartley. 
“What was it?” 

The girl half flushed as if she thought the 
whole thing was not worth bothering about, but 
answered, “Why, I remember now that I picked 
up the cap that was over the lense of the camera. 
It was lying on the floor. I remember I half 
kicked it and that instinctively I picked it up 
and replaced it.” 

Bartley’s eyes were flashing, as he asked, “Was 
the drapery over the lens?” 

“Yes, it had fallen all over the camera and I 
had to thrust under the drapery to place the cap 
over the lens.” 

Bartley suddenly, with an energetic air, placed 
the paper in his pocket and then told the girl 

* I 

that his questions were over. Before she left, 
she turned and asked why it was the word that 
caused her to remember she had picked the cap 
from the floor. 

Bartley told her that it was simply the sub¬ 
conscious mind breaking through some sort of a 
re])ression. The word had stirred her memory 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 219 


and without thinking, she had answered ^floor’ 
which simply brought back the whole thing. A 
moment after this, they left us. 

Bartley spent some time with the camera, 
looking it all over and even looking inside of it. 
I watched him for a moment or so, then went 
into the library and spent the time looking at 
the manuscripts which were under the glass 
cases. I was roused by Bartley^s voice. 

^Telt,” he asked, ‘^do you remember what 
Chaucer said?’’ 

‘^Chaucer?” came my puzzled reply. 

He smiled, “Yes, you may remember he said:— 

‘Tho it abide a yere or two or three, 

Mordre will out, this is my conclusion.’ ” 

He smiled as I looked a bit puzzled at his 
quotation. Then as we went toward the open 
door, he placed his hand on my shoulder. 

“It’s all over now. Pelt, all but being able to 
prove what I know.” 

His tone was so earnest I looked at him, 
“Prove what?” I asked. 

“Who killed my friend,” came the reply. 

Wondering if I heard aright, I gasped, “You 
know who killed Rice?” 

He simply nodded, the fine face stern, the lips 
tight. In a second, seeing my wondering look, 
he half smiled as he answered, “Yes, I know now. 


220 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


But the legal proofs will be the hardest of all.” 

Bj the elevator door he paused, as if thinking 
of something. Then he turned to me. ^^Pelt, 
you better stay here for at least forty minutes, 
so if I want you, I can get you at once.” 

Flinging the elevator door open, he stepped 
within but did not close the door after him. 
Instead there came a thoughtful look oyer his 
face as he once more repeated the line of Chaucer 
in a musing tone. Then he spoke:— 

“Chaucer was right, ‘Murder will out.^ I am 
going to town on one of the remotest chances I 
have ever taken—one in a million. Yet some¬ 
how I feel that it may come through. There is 
some Nemesis that pursues and overtakes one 
that kills. Blind chance steps forth, interposes 
facts and motives. So with my trip to town, 
iPs the one little flip that fate may have taken. 
If so, I have my man.” He paused for a moment, 
adding as he closed the door to descend, “Have 
him cold.” 

Startled by his words, I stood gazing rather 
blankly at the wall for a few moments. Try as 
I could, I failed to understand what he had dis¬ 
covered that made him think he knew the mur¬ 
derer. When he came into the room, he had no 
idea Tvho the guilty person might be. He had 
said that. But his very tone and air convinced 
me he was sure now. Besides, Bartley never 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 221 


made positive statements of that kind unless he 
was sure. I knew that from past experience. 

I tried to puzzle out what it was that had 
given him his positive tone. True, I realized that 
the discovery that the door would not lock by the 
spring catch, had changed the theory we had 
been working on. The murderer could not have 
left the room and simply closed the door and, by 
that, locked it. The key had been found inside 
and the door had to be locked with the key, 
locked from inside the room. That left the 
windows as the only means of escape. True, 
that meant walking the narrow ledge and sliding 
down a copper pipe to the ground. Somehow 
it seemed almost impossible. Yet it was the only 
way out of the room that had been left. But 
somehow, I had the idea that the thing Bartley 
had discovered was of more importance than the 
fact the spring lock did not work. What it was, 
I could not tell. 

Giving it up as a bad job, I went into the 
library. For a while I bent over the cases which 
contained the parchments. I knew little about 
them, besides the knowledge that they were the 
work of the monks of the twelfth century and 
onward. The gay-colored, letters, still bright 
after the centuries, had caused me to think of 
the tired fingers that long ago had so carefully 
traced the letters. The work had been the life 


222 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


task of many and the thought came, that those 
fingers which had toiled so carefully, hundreds 
of years ago, were now dust. 

Tired of the manuscripts, I began to look at 
the books in the cases. The cases filled all sides 
of the room, cases with glass doors behind which 
rested thousands of dollars worth of books. In 
idle curiosity I went from case to case, giving a 
quick glance at the contents of the row of shelves 
but not touching any of the books. I would 
have been unable to look at most of them any¬ 
way for the majority of the cases were locked. 

It was not till I had reached the case by the 
broken door that I found one unlocked. My eye 
caught the title of a book that I knew. It had 
been written by a college friend of mine. It 
seemed out of place in the room for the collection 
was not modern at all, being first editions of 
other days. Opening the glass door, I pulled 
the book forth. 

I spent a few moments looking at it, reading 
snatches here and there, smiling once in a while 
as I saw in certain lines characteristic words of 
my friend. Then, through with it, I started to 
put it back. As I did so, I noticed that the line 
of books on the shelf was a little uneven. I 
started to straighten them when, in reaching 
back, my hand fell on a book standing behind the 
others against the wall of the case. 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 223 


Hardly thinking what I did, and presuming 
the book perhaps had fallen out of place, I pulled 
it forth. I started to place it back in the row of 
books when my eyes suddenly fell on the title. 
It was a thin book of about twice the usual 
breadth and the letters on the cover were faded 
with age, so faded I could barely make them out.' 
But as I glanced at them, I suddenly caught my 
breath and stood silent. There, across the cover 
of the thin volume ran the words ‘‘I sonnetti 
lussuriosi di Pietro Aretino.’^ I held in my 
hand the missing book, worth |30,000. 

For a while I could only stare at it, not even 
turning the pages. When I opened it, my eyes 
fell on the faded Italian letters that were at the 
bottom of each engraving. The less said about 
the engravings the better, for even though I was 
alone, my face flushed as I looked at them. The 
thought came to me that it seemed a very 
small book to be worth so much money. There 
were only between fifty and sixty pages and, as 
I remember, sixteen or seventeen engravings. 
They were drawn in a day when times were 
more free than ours, yet the subjects even 
then caused trouble. I knew, of course, the 
value of the book did not depend upon its size 
but on the fact it was the only one in the world. 

Puzzled at my discovery of the book, I pulled 
the others off the shelf to see if there was any- 


224 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


thing else I could find. But I saw nothing. It 
looked as if the book had been simply shoved 
behind the others to get it out of sight. But who 
had done it? There came flashing over me the 
fear that either Bartley or the chief might think 
of the secretary. Still, I could not believe that 
she was the one. Who could have placed it 
there? It seemed as if it was as good a hiding 
place as any, for the book might have rested 
there for some time—till the one who had hidden 
it wished to take it from the house. 

At this moment the telephone, which was on 
the desk by the window, rang. Going over, I 
picked up the receiver. Bartley^s voice came 
floating over the wire telling me to meet him 
at the hotel. When he finished, I told him of 
finding the book. I heard him give a chuckle 
but his only comment was that I bring it with 
me. 

It turned out to be several hours before I saw 
Bartley again. I returned at once to the hotel 
and went to our room. There in a chair by the 
open window, I tried to figure out why the book 
had been hidden in the case. The more I 
thought of it, the more I became perplexed. It 
was an odd place to hide it but at that, no one 
would have thought of looking there. It struck 
me the person who had placed the book there, 
had intended to return and get it when all 



ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 225 


danger was over. Naturally, I tried to figure 
out who that person could be. An uneasy feel¬ 
ing crept over me when I thought that the 
secretary knew more about the book than anyone 
else and could have hidden it. But I tried to 
dismiss the thought from my mind. 

It was with a feeling of relief that I heard 
the knob of the door turn, and Bartley entered. 
Under his arm was a package and he seemed to 
be in a rare humor. In fact he was trying to 
whistle and, if one knew Bartley, that thing in 
itself was enough to tell that he was highly 
elated over something. For if there was one 
thing that he did not bother with, it was music, 
and only twice before had I ever heard him 
whistling a tune of any kind. 

He grinned broadly at my surprised look, 
placing the package carefully on the table. 
Then he took his old pipe, the one he never 
smoked till he was at the end of a case. Packing 
his favorite English tobacco into the bowl, he 
lighted it. It looked as if, at least to his satis¬ 
faction, his one chaAce in a million had come 
through. 

If it had, he did not tell me. Instead he asked 
about the finding of the book, smiling once or 
twice at several remarks that I made. Then 
when I had finished the story, I handed the 
Aretino to him. He glanced through it, gave a 



226 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


shrug of his shoulders at several of the plates, 
then remarked dryly:— 

‘^This book is worth its weight in gold but I 
would not give it house room. I am liberal 
enough in all my views but that’s no reason for 
a book of this kind having a public circulation. 
True it was another age that wrote it and other 
morals that could stand these plates. I judge, 
however—” 

He paused, gave a slight start and took 
from the book a little slip of paper. He half 
smiled when he handed it to me. I took it 
eagerly enough, though it turned out -to be 
nothing more than the slip that is placed in all 
packages of tobacco. It had the name of the 
brand on, one of the cheapest and worst of all 
brands. I felt a bit mortified that I had not 
observed it when I had glanced at the book. 
But Bartley said it had been tucked away 
between several of the plates. 

I knew of course that it was a clue of a kind. 
Rice would never have smoked that kind of 
tobacco and I remembered that Bartley had said 
that he never smoked a pipe anyway. If the 
person who had taken the book had placed the 
slip of paper there, then my fears regarding the 
secretary had been vain. This thought some¬ 
how or other gave me much satisfaction. 

W lien I handed the slip back to Bartley, he 


ONE CHANCE IN A MILLION 227 


simply placed it between the leaves of his note¬ 
book. He made no comments about it and I 
knew better than to ask any questions. Instead 
of speaking, he leaned back in the chair, the 
smoke from the pipe curling toward the ceiling 
and drifting finally out of the open window. 
He seemed contented, satisfied. I would have 
given a good deal if he had spoken. 

He did in the end, after his smoke was finished. 
But it was only to say, and there was a smile 
on his face as he spoke:—^ ^Telt, we had better 
go down and see if the dining room is open. 
After dinner we go to town and then— 
He threw out his hands in an expressive gesture, 
rising from the chair. I waited, but he said 
nothing else. Impatient, I asked:— 

^^Then—what?’’ 

He smiled and drawled out, ^Telt, they tell me 
that patience is a rare and great virtue. I com¬ 
mend the thought to you. I simply meant by 
‘then’ that we will prove Chaucer was right.” 

“Chaucer,” came my disgusted voice. 

“You remember,” he grinned at me, “his ex¬ 
pression, ‘Murder will out.’ ” 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 

HE clock in the town hall had just struck 
nine as Bartley and I were climbing the 
stone steps of the court house. Dusk had 
fallen -and across the street, the park looked 
fresh and green in the twilight. Couples were 
strolling to and fro. All this I took in, as we 
left the car and went into the building. 

I thought we would go to the chief’s office. 
Instead we went up to the other floor, pausing 
before the glass door that was marked ^^District 
Attorney.” Bartley gave a knock, then pushed 
the door open, and we entered the room. 

I had wondered just what our trip to town 
might mean, though I was sure in my own mind 
that Bartley had reached the solution of the 
case. His manner told me that. A grave, sober 
air was upon him and he had very little to say. 
When we stepped into the room, I was sure that 
he was to tell us his solution of the case. But 
I wondered what it might be, for it was still a 
mystery to me. 

The District Attorney came over to his side 
and for a few moments they held a low whispered 



THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 229 


conversation. I glanced around the room. The 
chief was sitting near the window, smoking a 
cigar. His uniform looked as if it had lately 
been pressed, and the gaze he turned on Bartley 
was a curious one. Dunn was standing near 
the chief and seemed a bit cast down over some¬ 
thing, but what it was, I did not, of course, 
know. The thing that surprised me the most, 
was to see Kent seated in ’a chair by the great 
desk that stood in the center of the room. Kent 
w^as the last person I would have expected 
Bartley might wish present. Yet he was there, 
though the others seemed to Ipve him alone. 

There was a curious air of constraint over 
them all. Neither the chief nor Dunn looked 
at Kent and all seemed nervous. Perhaps it 
was because they were all curious and just a bit 
excited. I could tell at a glance that no one 
had any idea why Bartley had called them to¬ 
gether, nor, for that matter, did I know myself. 
Taking a chair by the window, I passed a word 
or so with the two police officers and waited. 

Bartley and the attorney talked together for 
several minutes, the lawyer then taking a chair 
near his desk. Bartley went to the table that 
was in the center of the room, upon which he 
placed his brief case. Then, for a second, he 
stood looking at us. No longer did he look tired, 
instead in his eyes was a glitter of satisfaction. 


230 THE SHADOW ON THE OLASS 


His face was stern and he said nothing for a 
moment. I noticed that Kent seemed to get un¬ 
easy as he waited for Bartley to speak. 

He opened his brief case and took from it a 
small package which he laid carefully on the 
table, as if he was afraid that it might break. 
Then rather slowly and above all soberly, he 
started to speak. 

have called you together to-night because 
I wished to give you my opinion of the murder. 
It seemed to me that Mr. Kent should be in¬ 
cluded because of the circumstances of the past 
few days. Up to this afternoon, I had little idea 
myself who killed Mr. Bice. By a chance dis¬ 
covery and the nearest thing to a miracle I know 
of, I suddenly discovered that all our theories 
had been wrong.’’ 

I saw the chief give Dunn a questioning look 
and the local detective shook his head in reply. 
Evidently no one knew just what Bartley was 
to say. All of us were waiting eagerly for his 
next words. 

^^Let me go over the case and refresh your 
memories. We know that on the night of the 
murder, Mr. Rice brought back to the house 
some friends of his from the club, Mr. Kent 
included. Kent’s coming to the house was the 
merest sort of an accident. He was invited 
simply that he might see that the copy of the 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 231 


book, the Aretino, which Rice owned, was the 
first edition. When this was shown him, he 
doubted if it was the first edition and said so. 
Mr. Kent then left the house with the rest of the 
men, excusing himself after they had gone a ways 
and returned, going to the library. When he 
first went in, he had a cane with him; when he 
came out the second time, he had none. Mr. 
Rice was found dead the next morning, killed 
by Kent’s cane. When we asked him about the 
cane, he said it was at his house. Dunn and 
myself found out he had a bit of a quarrel with 
Rice, and the theory was that he killed him.” 

Kent’s face had gone red under Bartley’s 
words, yet his eyes never left the face of the 
speaker. I saw Bartley smile at him as he 
finished the summary of the evidence against 
the broker, asking him if that was not so. 
Kent rather coolly replied that Bartley had 
told the truth regarding his movements on the 
night of the crime, but insisted that he had 
thought the cane was at his house. He added 
he had been thunderstruck when they told him 
Rice had been murdered with the cane. 

When he finished, Bartley nodded his head in 
agreement, replying, with a grin at Dunn, ^‘Dunn 
built up the case against Kent. I don’t blame 
him and I hope Mr. Kent will have no hard 
feelings against him. The facts were strong 


232 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


enough to convince most juries I have ever seen. 
Kent, himself, made it worse when he tried to 
get down to New York. That caused his arrest. 
True he was simply going to see his lawyer, for 
he had just discovered that his cane was in the 
house of Mr. Rice, not in his own home as he 
had said. I admit it looked as if he might 
be the guilty man. The evidence was strong 
enough to hold him and I would have done the 
same thing myself. Only it so happens, Kent did 
not kill Rice; he had nothing to do with it. He 
told the truth, though he might have been a 
little more diplomatic in the way he told it. 
But he had nothing to do with the murder.” 

^The Deuce you say,” came the startled voice 
of Dunn, while the chief simply gave his detec¬ 
tive a very satisfied look. The chief had never 
believed that the wealthy broker committed the 
crime and simply looked at Dunn wdth a grin. 

^^No,” came Bartley^s answer, ^^he had nothing 
to do with it. Understand me, at the first, it 
looked as if no one else could have done it. 
Then came our discovery of the missing money 
and the wild attempt of Maxson to make it 
appear that he had been drowned. The fact 
he had quarreled with both his cousin and his 
uncle, and that he had told them that on the day 
of the wedding he would give them a ^jolt,’ 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 233 


looked pretty bad. When we found him with 
one of the gold pieces taken from the missing 
box, the evidence seemed overwhelming. The 
chief was sure then he was guilty. Dunn, 
however, was sure that Kent was the guilty man, 
while to top it all off, we had a man confess that 
he committed the murder. We soon found this 
last was untrue, yet we were left with two con¬ 
flicting theories, either one of which might be 
right—except for one thing.’’ 

‘What was that?” came the interested ques¬ 
tion from the District Attorney. 

“A very simple thing, yet one that bothered 
me. If Mr. Kent had killed Kice, he did it for 
the book. That Aretino is, I presume, worth 
the $30,000 they value it at. It’s the only copy 
of the original edition in the world. Book 
lovers, or rather collectors, were interested in 
it and its discovery made a stir. The facts 
against Kent, added to the discovery that the 
book was missing, of course made it seem as if 
he was guilty. But the money was missing also 
and the missing box of gold pieces made it look 
as if the young man was guilty. Eight here 
came the conflict. Either one might have killed 
for one thing—Kent for the book—Maxson for 
the money. But neither would take both, that 
was impossible. Kent would never take the 



234 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


money, and the chances were very much against 
the young man having taken the book. Only 
one theory was left.” 

^‘And that?” I ventured, as he paused. 

He smiled. ^Ht was. Pelt, that the money 
might have been taken by the young man before 
the murder, or the book taken by the secretary 
after the crime. I decided, however, there was 
nothing in that theory. Both things were taken 
by the person that killed Rice.” 

I saw the chief shake his head, as if he did 
not quite understand, and he asked, ^^Do you 
mean, all that fool yarn that kid told was true?” 

‘‘Not a bit of doubt of it. It was all true. 
The inferiority complex I told you about this 
afternoon will explain the motive for all he did. 
I know his attempt to run away was foolish, al¬ 
most inexplainable to a normal person. But 
the boy is not normal. He did the very things 
he told us of and though they seem very foolish 
to us, yet to him they were very real. He is a 
mental type and wished to be talked about. He 
did take one of the fifty-dollar gold pieces, but 
he had nothing to do with the crime. He told 
you the truth. That let him out. Kent, if his 
story vras true, is innocent also. Some one else 
must have done it.” 

“But, Good Lord, Mr. Bartley,” came the 
chiePs startled tone, “who in the Devil was there 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 235 


left? What other motive was there? If neither 
one of these two persons that all the evidence 
pointed at, is guilty, then who can be? The 
evidence seemed clear* that one of the two did 
it.” 

I saw Kent give Bartley a little smile. It 
must have been rather embarrassing for him 
to have heard the story Bartley told, also to have 
discovered how sure Dunn had been that he was 
guilty. But he was acting like a good sport, 
showing no malice and even grinning at Dunn 
when their eyes met. 

‘Well, chief,” came Bartley’s reply, “the only 
trouble with the evidence, was that it was too 
good—too conclusive. I better explain a little 
more.” He paused for a moment, as if listening 
to something. But the only sound was the 
shrill cry of a boy floating up from the street. 
“When the case was looked into, the evidence 
seemed very simple. There w^ere no clues, ex¬ 
cept those that connected the men we had named. 
Yet both, in fact all of us on the case, overlooked 
something. And that was the hour that Rice 
was killed.” 

“But Mr. Bartley,” replied the chief, “there 
was no way of fixing that.” 

Bartley smiled, “So it seemed, yet there was. 
He overlooked one fact. You remember there 
was a very heavy thunder storm the night of the 


236 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


murder. In fact, there were some flashes of 
lightning that seemed incessant. You forget, 
that for ten minutes, all the lights at the Hill 
were out, between 11: 45 and 11: 55. Mr. Rice 
was killed during those ten minutes. I think, 
maybe, in the first three of the ten, but I can 
prove he was killed during that time.” 

The chief shook his head, as if saying he gave 
it up, and the look of wonder on his face was 
rather laughable. Even I, who knew that Bart¬ 
ley never made a statement of that kind unless 
he could prove it, wondered why he was so posi¬ 
tive. Our amazement seemed to amuse him and 
he started to untie the package on the desk. 
Then raising his head, he said:— 

^Wou see, I am positive of that. If I am 
right, then neither Kent nor Maxson had any¬ 
thing to do with the death, for both left the room 
long before that hour. In fact, as I said the 
first day, this murder was not premeditated. I 
mean, no one was hiding for Rice in order to kill 
him. It was done in a struggle, a wild effort to 
escape disgrace.” 

^^Disgrace?” some one echoed. 

^^Disgrace in the sense that the individual had 
been found trying to steal something in the 
rooms, and, in the struggle that took place, killed 
Rice in sudden anger. There is no doubt of that. 
I think Rice was perhaps in the larger room. 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 237 


Let us say he might have .been looking out of one 
of the windows and the bookcases and the 
draperies hid him from 4:he sight of the person 
entering the room. Maybe, he was watching the 
play of the lightning on the sea. The person 
enters, enters with no intention of stealing. 
He peers in the little room and sees the Aretino, 
maybe on the safe or the desk. He remembers 
it is w^orth |30,000. The person had no idea it 
could not be sold, that selling meant discovery. 
He saw only the chance to take the book and 
get away. Shall we say he took it and Bice, 
coming into the little room at that moment, saw 
him. Then a struggle started. Rice proved 
stronger than the person thought. The fight 
swept all over the room, in the dark, remember, 
the lights having gone out. Then the murder- 
er^s hand fell on the cane and, in sudden rage, 
he pounded the life out of the shipowner.” 

^^My lord,” I heard Kent mutter, ^^you would 
think he was there and saw it all.” 

^^But,” came in the squeaky voice of Dunn, 
don’t see who there was that could have done 
it.” 

Bartley smiled again, his voice being rather 
dry as he replied, ^^Why, Dunn, I am even going 
to show you the man’s picture—taken while he 
was struggling with Rice.” 

The District Attorney shot a startled look at 



238 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


Bartley, as if asking whether he had suddenly 
gone crazy. I heard the chief say ^Ht can’t be 
done."’ Just what Bartley might have an¬ 
swered, I could not say, for suddenly I heard a 
long low whistle float up from the street. 

Bartley started over to the wall. His voice 
was crisp as he snapped out. want the lights 
out for a moment. There will come in here in a 
second or so, a man. That man will be the mur¬ 
derer. I don’t want you to show any surprise 
when I turn on the lights after he enters. I 
have him, I can convict him. It’s some one you 
never thought of. I want you simply to watch 
the glass in the door. I will tell you why later.” 

He pressed the button, and the room became 
dark. Not a dense darkness, for the light from 
the street lights floated in. Yet it was dark 
enough to make it impossible to distinguish the 
features of the people in the room. In a dazed 
wonder, I kept my eyes on the glass door. The 
light was on in the hall and the glass showed the 
yellow reflection. I think all were wondering 
why Bartley had put out the light. 

The room was still. Through the windows 
came the sounds of the street and some one un¬ 
easily moved his chair. I even heard the 
heavy breathing of the chief, as we waited. Then 
after what seemed an endless wait, I heard the 
sound of footsteps in the hall. Footsteps of 


THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 239 


some one not exactly sure of just the room he 
wanted who was studying the names on the 
doors. And then suddenly, there fell a shadow 
on the glass. 

The light must have been back of the person, 
for like a silhouette there fell upon the glass of 
the door the black shadow of a man. Who it 
was I could not tell, for the face was toward us 
and seemed but a black mass. Then he turned, 
as if looking up the hall and I saw the head and 
shoulders. A shadow of a big man, with one 
shoulder that stood higher than the other. 

In a second, I heard his hand fumble with the 
knob of the door and it was flung open. He 
stood with the light from the hall flooding into 
the room, stood waiting, as if trying to find out 
if any one was in. A tall figure, heavy'and thick¬ 
set, with that one shoulder higher than the other 
one. And it needed but a glance to see who the 
man was. For as he turned his head, to again 
look down the hall, the light fell full upon his 
face. It was one of the men that had been hired 
to guard the wedding presents the night of the 
crime. Bartley had said the murderer would 
enter the room. And as the man made one step 
within, I saw that it was the detective—Hall. 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 


MURDER WILL OUT 

A ll of US, save perhaps the District At¬ 
torney, recognized Hall. The thought 
was in all of our minds that Bartley had 
said the murderer would come in the door. It 
seemed incredible he should have known that 
Hall would come in. So far as I knew, there 
was not a single bit of evidence which connected 
him with the crime. Yet, Bartley had been cer¬ 
tain the murderer would be the man that would 
come in through the door. And the man that 
had opened the door was Hall. 

Before he could come further into the room, 
Bartley had turned on the light. After the dark¬ 
ness, the sudden brightness made us blink. I 
saw Hall give us a curious glance, as his eyes 
swept over the room. 

‘WhaPs the big idea of sitting in the dark?” 
he asked in a gruff tone. 

No one answered for a moment. The chiefs 
eyes, filled with amazement and doubt, came to 
the detective’s face and then went back to Bart¬ 
ley. Dunn, I noticed, gave but one look at Hall 
and a sudden startled expression swept over his 

240 


MURDER WILL OUT 


241 


face. Bartley’s face gave no idea of what he 
was thinking about, for it was stern and cold 
and expressionless. As he turned to Hall, he 
answered the question the man had asked. 

^^Glad you came up Hall,” he said, and the 
voice was crisp. ^We were talking the murder 
over and wanted to ask you a question or so.” 

I may have been mistaken, but I thought the 
. man gave a little start. He seemed to become 
tense, as if expecting something. Then he re¬ 
plied :— ^‘But I told you all I knew.” 

^Wes,” came the reply from Bartley, ^^but I 
wanted to ask you a question or so, in order to 
have the facts straight. You say that after 
Kent came down from the library, no one went 
up again?” 

^^Not that I saw,” came the short reply. 

“And you and Wells went up after you had 
your lunch, and found the door locked?” 

“Sure!” 

Bartley was silent for a moment, playing with 
the package on the table. Then he asked, “You 
are sure the door was locked?” 

“Dead sure, we could not open it.” 

“And the next morning after you broke the 
door in, did you turn the key that was inside the 
door?” 

Hall was silent a moment. I could see he was 
getting a bit angry at the questioning. He 


242 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


seemed to study his words before he said, 
told you once, that I had to reach through that 
hole I made in the door, and unlock it, as the 
door was locked from the inside.” 

To my surprise, Bartley did not ask another 
question for the time being. Instead he undid 
the package, throwing the string on the desk, 
and unwrapping the paper. When the pack¬ 
age was undone, we saw that it contained two 
photographs, mounted on cardboard. We all 
watched him eagerly, wondering what they 
might be. For a moment or so, he stood holding 
them in his hand, his face set, his lips tight. 
Then in a low voice he spoke:— 

suppose we men do not often stop to think, 
if there is a God or not. We moderns have 
little to say on that point. But from the first, 
I had one idea back in my mind. It was this. 
If there is a force of righteousness in the world, 
it could not allow a man like Rice to be brutally 
killed and the murderer escape. There were no 
clues in this case, nothing to point the way. Yet 
out of’the clear sky, there stepped forth some 
power, to lay the crime at the feet of the guilty 
person. The proof is something we never ran 
into before in a murder. It was the one chance 
in a million. Yet it is the most conclusive proof 
that one could ask.” 

As he paused, I saw the chief leaning forward 


MURDER WILL OUT 


243 


in his chair, his mouth open, his eyes big. 
Dunnes look never left Bartley’s face. None of 
us knew what he was talking about, and the 
seriousness of his tone was almost religious. 
Eagerly we waited for the next words. 

^Wou remember,” he said, “the lights were out 
the night of the murder. The struggle swept all 
over the little room—in the dark, remember. In 
a corner by the door, stood the great camera, 
that was used to take pictures of certain of his 
books. In that struggle the cap was knocked 
off the lens, and in some manner, the bulb fell 
under one of the legs of the tripod.” He paused 
to add, “In that camera at the time was an un¬ 
developed plate.” 

There came a sudden comprehending “Ah!” 
from the District Attorney, but no one else 
spoke. All were trying to puzzle out just what 
he meant. He continued:— 

“That cap must have been knocked off in the 
early part of the struggle. With the bulb on 
the floor, under the tripod, the camera was all 
set for a picture.” 

“But,” came my question, “the room was dark, 
John.” 

He nodded. “Yes, it was dark, a dense dark¬ 
ness. But remember one thing. There came 
those violent and incessant flashes of lightning. 
At some time, the two men were in front of that 


244 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


camera and also in front of the window when a 
flash of lightning came. It was long enough to 
have on that plate the faint silhouette of the 
two men. Not a real picture, remember, only 
the outline, but enough to show upon the plate. 
Later in the struggle, the heavy .draperies over 
the doors were pulled down and fell over the 
camera, thick draperies that shut out all light. 
It was there in the morning and was so heavy 
that no light had come through to spoil the 
plate. Mr. Eice^s daughter, when she came into 
the room that morning, by sheer instinct, picked 
up the cap from the floor and replaced it over 
the lens. I remembered that the bulb had fal¬ 
len under the leg of the tripod. I knew if there 
had been an undeveloped plate in the camera, 
there might be something on it.” 

He paused, then said soberly:— ‘^And on this 
plate was the shadow of the murderer, and here 
are the pictures made from it.” 

Suddenly he turned to Hall. His voice had a 
crisp thin edge that stung. ‘‘Hall, there is one 
more question I want you to answer.” 

HalTs face had turned white, and I could see 
the sweat form on his brow. His eyes were ner¬ 
vously searching the room, and I saw his hands 
tremble. He looked frightened and desperate. 

“One question,” came that cold voice of Bart- 


MURDER WILL OUT 


245 


ley. ^Wou say you found that key inside the 
door. Did you know that the spring lock was 
broken, that it was impossible to lock that door 
except from the outside? Tell me how it hap¬ 
pened you found the key inside.’’ 

I had seen Hall edge toward the door and 
had been surprised that Bartley had not pre¬ 
vented him. Hall was nearer the door than any 
one else and almost before Bartley had finished 
his sentence, he made a sudden dash from the 
room. We heard his running footsteps as he 
rushed for the stairs. The chief gave a leap 
from his chair, but was stopped by the District 
Attorney’s voice. 

^^He can’t get away. Mr. Bartley had me 
place men at the end of the stairs.” 

Even as he spoke, we heard the struggle on 
the floor below and, in a second, a voice floated 
up, ^We have him.” 

Some time later Hall was locked in a cell, and 
from the way he had cursed and sworn, there 
seemed little doubt we had the right man. But 
we were not satisfied, there were things we 
wished Bartley to explain. The air of tension 
that all had worn was gone and yet, there was 
a wondering tone in every one’s voice. 

We took our chairs and the chief voiced the 
thought of all of us. ‘^Darned if I don’t believe 


246 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


you have the right man, but how in the Devil did 
you dope it out?’’ 

Bartley laughed, ^^Never doped it out at all, 
chief. Blind luck in the end, and the one chance 
in a million with the pictures.” 

His voice became more serious. ^Ht came to 
me to-day, when I discovered that the spring lock 
on the library door had been broken several 
weeks before the crime. So long as we assumed 
the spring lock was all right, then all the mur¬ 
derer had to do when he left the room, was 
to close the door. The key would naturally be 
inside. But with the lock broken, the door, 
to be locked, had to be locked from the out¬ 
side.” 

The chief nodded his head to this and Bart¬ 
ley went on:— ^Though the windows were 
open yet it was impossible for one to have 
walked the ledge and slid down the copper pipe. 
The storm prevented that. Then the thought 
struck me, that they said Hall had broken 
through the door and put his hand in the hole, 
unlocking the door from the inside.” 

^‘But Mr. Bartley,” came the chief’s voice, 
^^they all said the door was locked.” 

^^Sure they did. It was. But not one of 
them ever thought to look through the keyhole. 
All assumed the key was inside. The door was 
locked but the key was not inside. Hall iin- 


MURDER WILL OUT 


247 


locked the door, all testified to that. But if he 
did, he must have had the key. All he did was 
to put his hand through the hole, place the key 
in the lock, and open the door. He had the key 
all the time.” 

^^Good lord!” came the voice of Dunn, ^^why 
did I not think of that?” 

‘Well,” laughed Bartley, “all of us slipped up. 
We all assumed the spring lock was all right. 
The butler knew it was not but finding the door 
locked, he naturally assumed it had been locked 
on the inside. When Hall unlocked that door, 
he proved he was guilty, for he had to have the 
key to do it. The door had been locked on the 
outside.” 

“But,” came the puzzled voice of the chief, “I 
don^t just see when he killed him.” 

“You remember that he went down to lunch 
around twenty minutes to twelve. Instead of 
going down to the kitchen, he went up to the 
library. You could not tell if he was going up 
or down, because the elevator made scarcely any 
noise. Why he went up, I don^t know. Bu»t he 
did. As he glanced in the room, he did not 
notice Rice who must have been at one of the 
windows. So he enters, peers into the little 
room which may have had the light on, sees the 
Aretino and then makes up his mind to take 
it.” 


248 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


^^How did he know what it was?” came the 
question from Kent. 

^^That^s easily explained, Kent. He heard 
you men talking of it when you came in the 
house. Both Wells and Hall went to the library 
with the butler while you were there. All you 
men were talking about the book and were look¬ 
ing at it. Billings tells me some one said while 
they were in, ^Think of this darned thing being 
worth $30,000.’ Hall heard that and saw the 
book.” 

He paused for a second, and swept on, pre¬ 
sume the temptation came to take it. He 
thought that no one knew he was in the library. 
So he took it, maybe placed it in his pocket, and 
Rice, who had seen it all, came in. I believe that 
just about the time Rice spoke to him, the lights 
went out and the struggle started. Hall had no 
idea of killing Rice when he entered, but in a 
sudden rage and to shut his mouth, struck him 
down. It only took a moment or so. He then took 
the box of gold pieces and went down to the 
kitchen. No one had seen him. Then he went 
into the cellar and hid the box under the ashes 
of the furnace. He could get the money at any 
time. In fact, the night we saw the light in the 
house, he had taken some of the gold pieces. As 
for the book, he decided it was a bit more than 
he could get rid of and placed it behind the 


MURDER WILL OUT 


249 


books in the case. But when, I do not know. 
He could get it some other time if he wished.” 

The chief had listened, with the air of a man 
that wished to believe the story, yet was not sure. 
As Bartley paused, he said, ‘‘But will that story 
of yours convict him? The strongest thing is the 
spring being broken. But you need more than 
that for a jury.” 

Bartley smiled, “True, but you forget the plate 
that was in the camera. It seems incredible, but 
on that plate was the likeness of the murderer. 
Not plain, like a picture, but good enough.” 

He placed the picture on the table and we 
crowded to see it. Our heads touched as we 
bent to look. Bartley had told the truth, when 
he said the figures were not plain. In fact the 
picture was more like one of those old-fashioned 
silhouettes one sees once in a while. There was 
the faint outline of the window from which the 
coirtain had been pulled down. But there was 
also the darker shadow of two men, a little apart. 
The dark outline and that was all. One of the 
figures was slight. The other heavy and thick¬ 
set. And the outline of the heavy, thick-set 
figure, a mass of blackness upon the picture, was 
for all that, the figure of a man. A man that 
had one shoulder standing high above the other. 
There was no doubt the figure was that of Hall. 

For a while we stood silently looking at the 


250 THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS 


picture. No one spoke. All realized that before 
us was the thing which would convict the man 
in the cell two stories below us. It was Hart¬ 
ley's voice that broke the silence. 

^^There was one thing more, a slight thing, but 
a link in the chain of evidence. Pelt found the 
missing book and in the pages, I found a little 
slip from a cheap brand of chewing tobacco. I 
find Hall chews that brand.’’ 

He paused again and, as he started to wrap 
up the pictures, said:— ^^There is no doubt 
about convicting Hall. His trying to escape is 
enough in itself. In fact no one else but he could 
have killed my friend.” 

We stayed around a while later talking, and 
as we left, I saw Kent go over to Dunn and shake 
his hand. Though he had enough to make him 
angry, yet he was coming clean as they say, and 
wished to show Dunn he bore no malice. Bart¬ 
ley had to receive the admiring congratulations 
of the chief and the others, but at last we got 
away. 

For some moments, as we drove out of the 
town, he said nothing. I was too filled with 
wonder to talk and for some reason he was silent. 
It was a beautiful night, the air cool, the stars 
above bright and clear. As we swept over the 
top of the hill that gave us the first view of the 
sea, we saw the ocean a few miles away, shining 


MURDER WILL OUT 


251 


under the moon. To my surprise, Bartley 
stopped the car at the top of the hill. For a 
while he was silent, then he turned toward me, 
placing his hand on my shoulder. His voice 
was almost reverent as he said:— 

^Telt, the sky to-night and the view of the sea, 
makes me think of that line of Shakespeare^s. 
^We are such stuff as dreams are made of.’ ” 
He paused, and there came a long silence. I 
knew enough not to speak. Then at last in a 
low voice, he said:— 

^‘This morning, I was afraid the death of my 
friend would have to go unavenged. Yet from 
somewhere, we know not where or how, there 
came that one little fact which cleared it up. 
Maybe the stars can answer why, maybe the sea. 
It’s all part of the same thing. But I am more 
sure than ever, that something plays its part 
with us. The line I quoted to-day is true.” 

For the second time that day, I failed to 
understand. ^^The line?” I asked. 

His hand sank into my shoulder with a 
friendly pressure Then just as he started the 
engine again, he said:— 

^Wes, that line— 

^Tho it abide a year or two or three 
Murder will out, this is my conclusion.’ ” 


THE END 










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